Crafting a Life in Essay, Story, PoemIn Crafting a Life in Essay, Story, Poem, Donald Murray demonstrates the craft that has been his discipline and joy for more than half a century. He describes how the writing act has allowed him to live his life twice--once in experience and once again as the evolving draft illuminates the texture and meaning of that experience. Murray takes the reader into his private writer's workshop and not only reveals the basic techniques of writing essays, stories, and poems, but also discusses the attitudes--emotional and mental--that determine the effectiveness of his craft. Beginning and experienced writers will work beside this Pulitzer Prize winning craftsperson, catching ideas from life, developing them in language, shaping them into publishable forms. In the first section of the book, Murray talks about attitudes and skills that encourage and initiate writing. Then he deals with specific techniques of writing the personal essay, fiction, and poetry. In the final section, he explains the skills of revision and editing as well as ways to develop a writing community and submit work for publication. Crafting a Life in Essay, Story, Poem is both a celebration of the writing process and a practical manual on how to explore the world with the written line. It is a book that every teacher and every student of writing should own. |
From inside the book
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... silence , ranging from the silence that comes from each weapon until we come to the silence of the wounded that I hope to make stronger by the " OmygodOmygod . " I write about silence and the wounded speak . I think it works . In other ...
... silence . • The silence would take place within the noise of combat . • Each stanza would start with after and end with silence . • Most lines would be short since the actions of the weapons on the battlefield are quick , violent ...
... silence , I wanted to do as much with as little as I could . There should be a great deal of space around the poem . So I cut a number of times before I got to what I thought was my final version . One of my test readers , Chip Scanlan ...