Body Work
The Radical Power of Personal Narrative
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Narrated by:
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Melissa Febos
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By:
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Melissa Febos
About this listen
In this bold and exhilarating mix of memoir and master class, Melissa Febos tackles the emotional, psychological, and physical work of writing intimately while offering an utterly fresh examination of the storyteller's life and the questions which run through it.
How might we go about capturing on the page the relationships that have formed us? How do we write about our bodies, their desires and traumas? What does it mean for an author's way of writing, or living, to be dismissed as "navel-gazing" - or else hailed as "so brave, so raw"? And to whom, in the end, do our most intimate stories belong?
Drawing on her own path from aspiring writer to acclaimed author and writing professor - via addiction and recovery, sex work and academia - Melissa Febos has created a captivating guide to the writing life, and a brilliantly unusual exploration of subjectivity, privacy, and the power of divulgence. Candid and inspiring, Body Work will empower listeners and writers alike, offering ideas-and occasional notes of caution - to anyone who has ever hoped to see themselves in a story.
©2022 Melissa Febos (P)2022 HighBridge, a division of Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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For Your Own Good, the contemporary classic exploring the serious if not gravely dangerous consequences parental cruelty can bring to bear on children everywhere, is one of the central works by Alice Miller, the celebrated Swiss psychoanalyst. With her typically lucid, strong, and poetic language, Miller investigates the personal stories and case histories of various self-destructive and/or violent individuals to expand on her theories about the long-term effects of abusive child-rearing.
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Should be required reading for everyone
- By Timothy on 05-15-18
By: Alice Miller
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Living an Examined Life
- By: James Hollis PhD
- Narrated by: Kevin M. Connolly
- Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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How do you define “growing up?” Does it mean you achieve certain cultural benchmarks - a steady income, paying taxes, marriage, and children? Or does it mean leaving behind the expectations of others and growing into the person you were meant to be? Here acclaimed author James Hollis guides you through 21 areas for self-inquiry and growth - such as how to exorcise the ghosts of your past, when to choose meaning over happiness, how to construct a mature spirituality, and how to seize permission to be who you really are.
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Extraordinary compilation of Dr. Hollis' works
- By Joseph on 02-17-18
By: James Hollis PhD
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Cunt (20th Anniversary Edition)
- By: Inga Muscio
- Narrated by: Inga Muscio
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In this fully revised anniversary edition of the classic testament to women's empowerment, Muscio explores with candidness and humor such traditional feminist issues as birth control, sexuality, jealousy between women, and prostitution with a fresh attitude for a new generation of women. Sending out a call for every woman to be the "Cuntlovin' Ruler of Her Sexual Universe", Muscio stands convention on its head by embracing the provocative and celebrating womanhood.
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Best book ever
- By Paula Daniels on 07-28-19
By: Inga Muscio
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Covering
- The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights
- By: Kenji Yoshino
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Everyone covers. To cover is to downplay a disfavored trait so as to blend into the mainstream. Because all of us possess stigmatized attributes, we all encounter pressure to cover in our daily lives. Given its pervasiveness, we may experience this pressure to be a simple fact of social life. Against conventional understanding, Kenji Yoshino argues that the demand to cover can pose a hidden threat to our civil rights.
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Humane Advocacy in Law and Life
- By Patroclus Menoetius on 07-27-20
By: Kenji Yoshino
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Bonds That Make Us Free
- Healing Our Relationships, Coming to Ourselves
- By: C. Terry Warner
- Narrated by: C. Terry Warner
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Bonds That Make Us Free is a groundbreaking book that suggests the remedy for our troubling emotions by addressing their root causes. You'll learn how, in ways we scarcely suspect, we are responsible for feelings like anger, envy, and insecurity that we have blamed on others. Even though we fear to admit this, it is good news. If we produce these emotions, it falls within our power to stop them. But we have to understand our part in them far better than we do, and that is what this remarkable book teaches.
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Helped save our marriage.
- By Kevin Gray on 02-15-19
By: C. Terry Warner
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The Art of Fiction
- By: Ayn Rand
- Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Ayn Rand discusses how a writer combines abstract ideas with concrete action and description to achieve a unity of theme, plot, characterization, and style, the four essential elements of fiction. Here, too, are Rand's illuminating analyses of passages from famous writers, rewrites of scenes from her own works, and fascinating rules for building dramatic plots and characters with depth.
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Get Stein on Writing
- By Lois on 12-04-09
By: Ayn Rand
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Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life
- How to Finally, Really Grow Up
- By: James Hollis PhD
- Narrated by: Gary Galone
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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What does it really mean to be a grown-up in today's world? We assume that once we "get it together" with the right job, marry the right person, have children, and buy a home, all is settled and well. But adulthood presents varying levels of growth and is rarely the respite of stability we expected. Turbulent emotional shifts can take place anywhere between the ages of 35 and 70 when we question the choices we've made, realize our limitations, and feel stuck - commonly known as the "midlife crisis".
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The great bait and switch.
- By real. on 12-14-19
By: James Hollis PhD
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The Western Canon
- The Books and School of the Ages
- By: Harold Bloom
- Narrated by: James Armstrong
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Harold Bloom explores our Western literary tradition by concentrating on the works of twenty-six authors central to the Canon. He argues against ideology in literary criticism; he laments the loss of intellectual and aesthetic standards; he deplores multiculturalism, Marxism, feminism, neoconservatism, Afrocentrism, and the New Historicism. Insisting instead upon "the autonomy of aesthetic," Bloom places Shakespeare at the center of the Western Canon.....
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A personal and opinionated book on the Canon
- By Steffen on 07-23-12
By: Harold Bloom
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Post-Romantic Stress Disorder
- What to Do When the Honeymoon Is Over
- By: John Bradshaw
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 5 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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John Bradshaw is arguably the most accomplished and well-known leader alive today in the addictions field. He taught us about functional and dysfunctional families, showed us how shame could become toxic and poisonous to our core selves, and helped us understand and heal the wounded, vulnerable "inner child" conceived by, and thriving in, that environment. In Post-Romantic Stress Disorder (PRSD), Bradshaw gives readers a clear explanation of the difference between falling in love, lust, and true love.
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How do you own the world, how do you own disorder?
- By Derek G. on 01-13-17
By: John Bradshaw
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The Republic of Imagination
- America in Three Books
- By: Azar Nafisi
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Blending memoir and polemic with close readings of her favorite novels, she describes the unexpected journey that led her to become an American citizen after first dreaming of America as a young girl in Tehran and coming to know the country through its fiction. She urges us to rediscover the America of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and challenges us to be truer to the words and spirit of the Founding Fathers, who understood that their democratic experiment would never thrive or survive unless they could foster a democratic imagination.
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Love
- By Rebecca on 05-29-16
By: Azar Nafisi
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Men Explain Things to Me
- By: Rebecca Solnit
- Narrated by: Luci Christian Bell
- Length: 2 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit takes on the conversations between men who wrongly assume they know things and wrongly assume women don't. The ultimate problem, she shows in her comic, scathing essay, is female self-doubt and the silencing of women. Rebecca Solnit is the author of fourteen books about civil society, popular power, uprisings, art, environment, place, pleasure, politics, hope, and memory, most recently The Faraway Nearby, a book on empathy and storytelling.
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Great read - horrible performance
- By Denise Johnson on 03-26-15
By: Rebecca Solnit
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How to Write an Autobiographical Novel is the author's manifesto on the entangling of life, literature, and politics, and how the lessons learned from a life spent reading and writing fiction have changed him. In these essays, he grows from student to teacher, reader to writer, and reckons with his identities as a son, a gay man, a Korean American, an artist, an activist, a lover, and a friend. He examines some of the most formative experiences of his life and the nation's history.
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The unexpected how-to
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Refuse to Be Done
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many great tips
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Before and After the Book Deal
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A gem for early-stage writers
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Great read, audio needs editing
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In her critically acclaimed memoir, Whip Smart, Melissa Febos laid bare the intimate world of the professional dominatrix, turning an honest examination of her life into a lyrical study of power, desire, and fulfillment. In her dazzling Abandon Me, Febos captures the intense bonds of love and the need for connection - with family, lovers, and oneself. First, her birth father, who left her with only an inheritance of addiction and Native American blood, its meaning a mystery.
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This journey is captivating to say the least!
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The unexpected how-to
- By Mark A. on 07-03-19
By: Alexander Chee
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Refuse to Be Done
- How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts
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many great tips
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The Memoir Project
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Whether or not one has lived an exceptional or dramatic life, we inherently understand that writing memoir—whether it’s a book, blog, or just a letter to a child - is the single greatest portal to self-examination. Stop treading water in writing exercises or hiding behind “writer’s block” and learn how to write with intent. Marion Roach Smith’s disarmingly frank but wildly fun tactics offer you simple and effective guidelines that work. Your legacy beings now.
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amazing what you can learn from brevity
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Meander, Spiral, Explode is a singular and brilliant elucidation of literary strategies that also brings high spirits and wit to its original conclusions. It is a liberating manifesto that says, Let's leave the outdated modes behind and, in thinking of new modes, bring feeling back to experimentation. It will appeal to serious readers and writers alike.
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Maybe changed my writing life
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Stein on Writing
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Stein on Writing provides immediately useful advice for writers of fiction and nonfiction, whether newcomers or accomplished professionals. As Sol Stein, renowned editor, author, and instructor, explains, "This is not a book of theory. It is a book of usable solutions, how to fix writing that is flawed, how to improve writing that is good, how to create interesting writing in the first place."
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Excellent advice and examples for better writing.
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By: Sol Stein
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How to Write Short
- Word Craft for Fast Times
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In How to Write Short , Roy Peter Clark turns his attention to the art of painting a thousand pictures with just a few words. Short forms of writing have always existed - from ship logs and telegrams to prayers and haikus. But in this ever-changing Internet age, short-form writing has become an essential skill. Clark covers how to write effective and powerful titles, headlines, essays, sales pitches, Tweets, letters, and even self-descriptions for online dating services.
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Ironically long
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By: Roy Peter Clark
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The Art of Cruelty
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Today both reality and entertainment crowd our fields of vision with brutal imagery. The pervasiveness of images of torture, horror, and war has all but demolished the 20th-century hope that such imagery might shock us into a less alienated state, or aid in the creation of a just social order. What to do now? When to look, when to turn away? Genre-busting author Maggie Nelson brilliantly navigates this contemporary predicament, with an eye to the question of whether or not focusing on representations of cruelty makes us cruel.
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Wonderful book, mediocre narration
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Writing Life Stories
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From drawing a map of a remembered neighborhood to signing a form releasing yourself to take risks in your work, Roorbach offers innovative techniques that will trigger ideas for all writers. Writing Life Stories is a classic text that appears on countless creative nonfiction and composition syllabi the world over. This updated 10th anniversary edition gives you the same friendly instruction and stimulating exercises along with updated information on current memoir writing trends, ethics, internet research, and even marketing ideas.
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Why oh why didn’t I find this book 50 years ago?
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By: Bill Roorbach
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The Art of Memoir
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Anchored by excerpts from her favorite memoirs and anecdotes from fellow writers' experience, The Art of Memoir lays bare Karr's own process. (Plus all those inside stories about how she dealt with family and friends get told - and the dark spaces in her own skull probed in depth.)
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Brilliant!
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By: Mary Karr
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Zen in the Art of Writing
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"Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a land mine. The land mine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces back together. Now, it's your turn. Jump!" Zest. Gusto. Curiosity. These are the qualities every writer must have, as well as a spirit of adventure. In this exuberant book, the incomparable Ray Bradbury shares the wisdom, experience, and excitement of a lifetime of writing. Here are practical tips on the art of writing from a master of the craft - everything from finding original ideas to developing your own voice and style.
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Evocative fuel for any Muse!
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Never Say You Can't Survive
- How to Get Through Hard Times by Making Up Stories
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Things are scary right now. We’re all being swept along by a tidal wave of history, and it’s easy to feel helpless. But we’re not helpless: We have minds, and imaginations, and the ability to visualize other worlds and valiant struggles. And writing can be an act of resistance that reminds us that other futures and other ways of living are possible. Full of memoir, personal anecdote, and insight about how to flourish during the present emergency, Never Say You Can’t Survive is the perfect manual for creativity in unprecedented times.
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A must-have for any creative writer
- By P.J. Powell on 09-13-21
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20 Master Plots
- And How to Build Them
- By: Ronald B. Tobias
- Narrated by: Barry Abrams
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
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The best stories linger in the hearts and minds of readers for decades. These tales gain their power through plots that connect with the audience on both an emotional and intellectual level. Ronald B. Tobias details these 20 time-tested plots. Each is discussed and analyzed, illustrating how a successful plot integrates all the elements of a story. Tobias then reveals how to use these plots effectively in your own work.
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Some Good Ideas
- By Christine Amsden on 10-05-20
By: Ronald B. Tobias
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Craft in the Real World
- Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping
- By: Matthew Salesses
- Narrated by: Matthew Salesses
- Length: 5 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The traditional writing workshop was established with white male writers in mind; what we call craft is informed by their cultural values. In this bold and original examination of elements of writing - including plot, character, conflict, structure, and believability - and aspects of workshop - including the silenced writer and the imagined reader - Matthew Salesses asks questions to invigorate these familiar concepts. He upends Western notions of how a story must progress.
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Utterly Useless
- By Courtney Withers on 09-23-23
By: Matthew Salesses
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The Secrets of Story
- Innovative Tools for Perfecting Your Fiction and Captivating Readers
- By: Matt Bird
- Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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The Secrets of Story is a revolutionary and comprehensive writing guide for the 21st century, focused on clever ways to get an audience to fully identify with an all-too-human hero. Authors will learn to how to cut through pop culture noise and win over a jaded modern audience by rediscovering the heart of writing: shaping stories that ring true to our shared understanding of human nature.
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Good Story Impossible? 'Au Contraire'!
- By Gillian on 05-26-17
By: Matt Bird
What listeners say about Body Work
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- JudyGo
- 01-04-23
Making Art from Experience
I saw this book in my local independent bookstore. While I like to support local merchants, I knew this was a book that was best experienced by listening. I’m so pleased the author read her work. Listening was a learning experience and a joy! Thank you.
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- Hillwalker
- 03-31-24
Inspiring and instructive
Melissa Febos’ Body Work is humble and honest as it is bold and transgressive. I am one of those writers who has always been drawn to writing personal narrative while also feeling tangled up in embarrassment about it. In this slim essay collection Melissa does more than mount an effective intellectual argument in favor of personal writing - she also restores its dignity and spiritual purpose. If you long to write your story but aren’t sure you have a right to do so, read this book.
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- Anonymous User
- 05-12-24
Exactly what I needed
Thank you for writing this book!!! This is an excellent book and couldn’t recommend it more
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- Ariel Dunitz-Johnson
- 06-21-23
Brilliant
A brilliant examination of creative process and how to process our stories and transform these experiences into creative practice. Febos so vulnerably shares how she continues to dig deeper into her own writing and shares tips and advice for others to translate their life and traumas with words, paint or any medium. A must read for all, but especially for fellow creatives.
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- Trevor
- 07-21-23
Wow
This book is helping me with research on a book I’m go writing wow just wow!!!
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- James
- 05-09-24
He’ll yes!
Great insight, writing, and brave words. She has made an impact on my view of writing and living.
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- Lula
- 12-31-22
Short, motivating book for memoirists
This is a niche book on the power of writing your personal story, mainly geared towards women. It is much more a book on writing than it is memoir. I have not read this author’s other works but I am curious now. There are a lot of beautiful and inspiring lines, so many that I am considering purchasing a hard copy so I can highlight and refer back to them. It’s a short listen, well-written, well-narrated. I would recommend it to any women who is writing or considering writing about their life!
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- taylor slaughter
- 12-05-22
read if ur a queer writer!!!
im an aspiring writer, a new one even, and this book really helped me understand the why and the how. i feel so much more prepared to write and theorize my life thanks to Febos’s work. will definitely listen again and again. Thank you Melissa Febos for sharing your stories with us.
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- Elizabeth B. Crook
- 11-22-22
Must read for Memorist
insightful and beautiful writing . Clear and courageous telling of the power personal narrative has to transform both writer and reader
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- Rose Marie
- 01-28-23
A great!
This was a great time! I highly recommend it. I want to read or listen more from this author.
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