Book description
Master the Elements of the Writing Workshop
The great paradox of the writing life is that to be a good writer,
you must be both interested in the world around you and comfortable
working in solitude for hours on end. Fiction Writer's Workshop,
Second Edition, is designed to help you foster a strong sense of
independenceÂ-of being and thinking on your own, of becoming
self-evaluative without being self-criticalÂ-in order to accomplish
what others seek in classroom groups.
In this comprehensive guide, award-winning writer and teacher Josip
Novakovich explores every aspect of the art of fiction and provides
all the tools and techniques you'll need to develop day-to-day
discipline as well as a personal writing style, such as:
- More than 100 writing exercises, including dozens that are new
to this edition, that challenge you to experiment with diverse
writing styles
- Specific statements of purpose for each
exercise, to help guide you and instruct you at every step of the
creative process
- Self-critique questions to help you
assess your work and identify strengths and weaknesses before
moving on to the next lesson
- The full text of eight
acclaimed short stories, with analysis and exercises, to provide
models for your own writing and help reinforce the lessons you've
learned
The practical, insightful methods offered in this
workshop will clarify your voice, broaden your perspective, and
strengthen your fiction.
Josip Novakovich is the author of a novel (
April Fool's Day
, HarperCollins), three story collections (
Infidelities: Stories of
War and Lust
,
Yolk
and
Salvation and Other Disasters
), two collections of narrative essays (
Plum Brandy: Croatian Journeys
and
Apricots from Chernobyl
), and was anthologized in
Best American Poetry
,
Pushcart Prize
, and
O. Henry Prize Stories
. He has received the Whiting Writer's Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, and
two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships.
