“A funny, seasoned take on dashed illusions.”—O Magazine“I love everything Meredith Maran writes. She is insightful, funny, and human, and the things she writes about matter to me deeply. Her memoir, The New Old Me, is a book I don’t just want to read—I need to read it. So does everyone else who’s getting older and wants to live fully, with immediacy and enjoyment, which is to say, everyone.”—Anne Lamott, author of Hallelujah ...

Venturing into uncharted territory, mother and award-winning journalist Meredith Maran takes us inside teenagers' hearts, minds, and central nervous systems to explore the causes and consequences of our nation's drug crisis. In these pages we get to know the kids, the parents, the therapists, and the drug treatment programs at their best and worst. We're face-to-face with seventeen-year-old Mike, whose life revolves around selling, smoking, and snorting speed; fifteen-year-old Tristan -- t...

In the voices of twenty landmark memoirists—including New York Times bestselling authors Cheryl Strayed, Sue Monk Kidd, and Pat Conroy—a definitive text on the craft of autobiographical writing, indispensable for amateur and professional writers alike.For readers of Mary Karr’s The Art of Memoir and Judith Barrington’s Writing the Memoir, this follow-up to editor Meredith Maran’s acclaimed writers’ handbook, Why We Write, offers ...

“A family’s world is irrevocably rocked when an old female lover from Mom’s past reappears” in this “sexy, audacious, politically charged” novel (Vanity Fair).Eager to escape her damaging past, Alison Rose is drawn to Zoe, a free-spirited artist who offers emotional stability and a love outside the norm. They spend a number of happy years together—until the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake deepens fissures in their relationship, and Alison leaves Zoe for a “nor...

Twenty of America's bestselling authors share tricks, tips, and secrets of the successful writing life.Anyone who's ever sat down to write a novel or even a story knows how exhilarating and heartbreaking writing can be. So what makes writers stick with it? In Why We Write, twenty well-known authors candidly share what keeps them going and what they love most—and least—about their vocation.Contributing authors include:Isabel ...

“Still Writing offers up a cornucopia of wisdom, insights, and practical lessons gleaned from Dani Shapiro's long experience as a celebrated writer and teacher of writing. The beneficiaries are beginning writers, veteran writers and everyone in between.”—Jennifer EganFrom Dani Shapiro, bestselling author of Devotion and Slow Motion, comes a witty, heartfelt, and practical look at the exhilarating and challenging process of storytelling. A...

For more than thirty years Natalie Goldberg has been challenging and cheering on writers with her books and workshops. In her groundbreaking first book, she brings together Zen meditation and writing in a new way. Writing practice, as she calls it, is no different from other forms of Zen practice—"it is backed by two thousand years of studying the mind."This thirtieth-anniversary edition includes new forewords by Julia Cameron and Bill Addison. It also includes a new preface in whi...

"For nonwriters, it is a glimpse into the trials and satisfactions of a life spent with words. For writers, it is a warm, rambling, conversation with a stimulating and extraordinarily talented colleague." — Chicago TribuneFrom Pulitzer Prize-winning Annie Dillard, a collection of essays on writing that illuminates the dedication and daring that characterizes a writer's life.In these short essays, Annie Dillard—the author of Pil...

"On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition EPB is a bible for a generation of writers looking for clues to clean, compelling prose." —New York TimesA beloved classic and the definitive volume on the art of writing nonfictionOn Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition EPB, which grew out of a course that William Zinsser taught at Yale, has been praised for its sound advice, its clarity, and for the w...

Can Outlining Help You Write a Better Story?Writers often look upon outlines with fear and trembling. But when properly understood and correctly wielded, the outline is one of the most powerful weapons in a writer’s arsenal.Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success will:Help you choose the right type of outline for youGuide you in brainstorming plot ideasAid you in discovering your charactersShow you ...

A distinguished novelist and critic inspires readers and writers with this inside look at how the professionals read—and writeLong before there were creative writing workshops and degrees, how did aspiring writers learn to write? By reading the work of their predecessors and contemporaries, says Francine Prose.As she takes us on a guided tour of the tools and the tricks of the masters—Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Kafka, Austen, Dickens, Woolf, Chekhov—Prose discovers why these wr...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An essential volume for generations of writers young and old. The twenty-fifth anniversary edition of this modern classic will continue to spark creative minds for years to come. Anne Lamott is "a warm, generous, and hilarious guide through the writer’s world and its treacherous swamps" (Los Angeles Times).**“Superb writing advice…. Hilarious, helpful, and provocative.” —**The New York Times Book Review