The Writer's Notebook

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0062586181
• ISBN13: 9780062586186
• Release Date: May 1995
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 0.8" x 0.3"

Customer Reviews

Fun, Odd and Interesting Insights into Writers' Minds

As a fan of and subscriber to the "West Coast" literary journal, ZYZZYVA, I received a free copy of "The Writer's Notebook" when I made a modest donation to show my support for Howard Junker's literary enterprise. For those of us who are aspiring writers or simply lovers of literature, this book offers wonderfully fun, odd and always interesting insights into the minds of such fine writers as Sherman Alexie, Brenda Hillman, David Rains Wallace and Ethan Canin, to name a few of the sixteen authors presented here. These glimpses into the writers' notebooks show how personal and idiosyncratic the creative process is: we see sketches, first drafts, outlines, newspaper clippings, interlineated text, etc. Mr. Junker, in his introduction, observes that the "notebooks are notoriously raw, uncooked sometimes to the point of illegibility" requiring footnote translations "for the most egregious practitioners of bad penmanship [such as] Gerald Vizenor and Charles Johnson." Well, that's the charm of this joyous collection. Each excerpt of notebooks includes a short introduction from the writer him/herself which adds nicely to our understanding of how these writers work. I highly recommend this book.