bookishwendy's review against another edition
4.0
This is a great little collection of essays by some notable contributors. I have to admit that my favorite chapter here was Steve Almond's hilarious little gem about the awkwardness--and near impossibility--of writing about sex ("Hard up for a Hard-On", which, coincidentally, includes both lovely and nauseating examples. Consider yourself warned). Other notable chapters that I found particularly helpful include "Performing Surgery without Anesthetic" by Chris Offutt on revisions, "Making a Scene" by Anne Keesey, "Generating Fiction from History" by Jim Shepherd, and even (surprisingly?) "Shakespeare for Writers" by Margot Livesy. I found a few chapters too esoteric and/or vague, such as "The Mercurial Worlds of the Mind" about writing imaginary worlds in which the author's enthusiastically bizarre style I found almost impossible to follow. Bottom line, I'd recommend this to any student of creative writing. Good essay fodder here, to be sure!
marissalevien's review against another edition
5.0
As a writing teacher, this book has been insanely useful for class material. Sometimes craft essays can be dry, the writers sourced in this book provide advice and analysis that's both smart and entertaining.
quinlpa's review against another edition
4.0
This was a really solid anthology, I'll definitely be coming back to re-read a good number of these essays.
sawyerbell's review against another edition
3.0
Useful and insightful advice. Avoids the unworkable cookie cutter approach of most writer's guides.
julieannholland's review against another edition
informative
fast-paced
4.0
This is a nice and fun set of essays regarding writing, specifically short fiction or flash fiction writing. I enjoyed all of the ideas from each author as to what makes a story to them, and I genuinely never got bored, which is astonishing since typically with books that are another person's opinions of what makes a good story usually bore me. I would say that this collection is very approachable and I really did like it.
emma_burcart's review against another edition
5.0
There are some really helpful craft essays in here, a few I marked up and will likely revisit again.
curiousreader's review
3.0
This collection of essays focus on writing but have rather different approaches - some specifically talk about poetry, about Shakespeare, about fairytales and about specific books like The Great Gatsby. Others have more general ideas, theories and advice that could be applied to a wide variety of people and stories I think. I found some of the essays too heavy in quotes and examples - which really took away from my personal connection to what exactly was being said, instead I kept being annoyed at being thrown into so many different stories in one short essay. It's one thing to illustrate a point with a quote - which many did, but in my opinion a few of these essays could've lost some of the quotes to become clearer. "Place" by Dorothy Allison, "When to keep it simple" by Rick Bass, "Making a Scene" by Anna Keesey, "Performing surgery without anaesthesia" by Chris Offut, and "(Mis) Adventures in Poetry" by D. A Powell I found to be very interesting and useful in terms of writing. My favourite essay may have been "Character motivation" by Aimee Bender which I didn't only find useful in terms of writing but also particularly interesting from a readers point of view. All of the essays mentioned I found to be thought provoking in some way or other, and would recommend to anyone wanting to get some pointers for writing - not just writing fiction, some of these I thought could be applied to school related writing as well.
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