Composition category: 2309 books

Do you love mystery stories, such as the Sherlock Holmes stories and those of Edgar Allan Poe and Agatha Christie? Do you ever yearn to be a good writer of mysteries? Carolyn Wells was a prolific author of mystery novels. In this detailed book, she teaches the history, types, principles,...

This collection of essays by well-established professional writers explores how their notebooks serve as their studios and workshops—places to collect, to play, and to make new discoveries with language, passions, and curiosities. For these diverse writers, the journal also serves as an ideal forum...

20 stories, poems, and essays by bestselling writers paired with 20 pieces by aspiring writers 40+ pages of interviews, writing prompts, and tools for classroom use THE STORY I WANT TO TELL pairs the work of 20 aspiring young writers—including immigrants from war-ravaged countries—with original...

'A systematic and engaging approach to creative writing' - Carla Harryman, Wayne State University By suggesting that students who are not born poets can yet learn to become good ones, Smith performs a very important service.' - Professor Susan M. Schultz, University of Hawaii This is...

Since the publication of his groundbreaking books Writing Without Teachers and Writing with Power, Peter Elbow has revolutionized how people think about writing. Now, in Vernacular Eloquence, he makes a vital new contribution to both practice and theory. The core idea is simple: we can enlist virtues...

Who sets language policy today? Who made whom the grammar doctor? Lacking the equivalent of l'Académie française, we English speakers must find our own way looking for guidance or vindication in source after source. McGuffey's Readers introduced nineteenth-century students to "correct"...

Dazzlingly original, Ann Beattie’s Mrs. Nixon is a riveting exploration of an elusive American icon and of the fiction writer’s art. Pat Nixon remains one of our most mysterious and intriguing public figures, the only modern First Lady who never wrote a memoir. Beattie, like many of her...

Have You Ever Had Writer's Block? Do You Want a Book That Could Keep It Away for Good? Writing prompts are questions and hypothetical situations that are able to cure writer's block instantly. This book gives you exactly one thousand idea-generating prompts that focus on most memorable...

Folktales from the African American Appalachian tradition. Told by Lyn Ford, one of America’s busiest touring storytellers. The power of Lyn's storytelling comes straight out of her family heritage, which is the content of this, her first book. Here she tells how she learned stories from her father and grandfather—and she includes many of the stories they told her.

There is a mixture of exercises ranging from opening to closing sentences, word association, and completion projects. I find that most people have the most trouble starting a project. We just don’t know where to begin a novel or paper or whatever. That being the case, there are a lot of projects...

Each year brings a batch of new memoirs, ranging from works by former teachers and celebrity has-beens to disillusioned soldiers and bestselling novelists. In addition to becoming bestsellers in their own right, memoirs have become a popular object of inquiry in the academy and a mainstay in most...

This powerful and deeply inspirational handbook is for anyone coping with serious illness or injury-be it theirs or that of a loved one-who wants and needs to help themselves through the healing process. Offering her own experience with breast cancer, as well as stories from other authors who have...

For more than a quarter of a century, Pat Schneider has helped writers find and liberate their true voices. She has taught all kinds--the award winning, the struggling, and those who have been silenced by poverty and hardship. Her innovative methods have worked in classrooms from elementary to graduate...

The Pulitzer Prize–winning author “shares his insights into—and passion for—the creation and experience of fiction with total openness” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).   Robert Olen Butler, author of Perfume River, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, and A Small Hotel, teaches graduate...