
Dear Writer
Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life
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Narrated by:
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Maggie Smith
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By:
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Maggie Smith
About this listen
New York Times bestselling author and poet Maggie Smith distills creativity and the craft of writing with a practical guide perfect for fans of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic and Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird.
Drawing from her twenty years of teaching experience and her bestselling Substack newsletter, For Dear Life, Maggie Smith breaks down creativity into ten essential elements: attention, wonder, vision, play, surprise, vulnerability, restlessness, tenacity, connection, and hope. Each element is explored through short, inspiring, and craft-focused essays, followed by generative writing prompts. Dear Writer provides tools that artists of all experience levels can apply to their own creative practices and carry with them into all genres and all areas of life.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2025 Maggie Smith (P)2025 Simon & Schuster AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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After writing three critically acclaimed memoirs and a decade of teaching memoir workshops at every level, Elissa Altman has helped students face the elephant in every writer’s room: how to craft the stories that are most vital to them despite the voices that have told them not to. Permission is a master course, not only on how to craft memoir, but how to begin and keep going when you’ve been told you can’t, and how to how to give yourself permission to transcend the fear that keeps vital stories from being written.
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Exceptional storytelling
- By dana dunn on 03-27-25
By: Elissa Altman
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Writing Tools (10th Anniversary Edition)
- 55 Essential Strategies for Every Writer
- By: Roy Peter Clark
- Narrated by: Neil Kaplan
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Ten years ago, Roy Peter Clark, America's most influential writing teacher, whittled down almost 30 years of experience in journalism, writing, and teaching into a series of 50 short essays on different aspects of writing. In the past decade, Writing Tools has become a classic guidebook for novices and experts alike and remains one of the best loved books on writing available. This new edition includes five brand-new, never-before-shared tools.
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Refreshing
- By Danielle on 06-15-21
By: Roy Peter Clark
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Four Days a Week
- The Life-Changing Solution for Reducing Employee Stress, Improving Well-Being, and Working Smarter
- By: Juliet Schor
- Narrated by: Helen Laser
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Bestselling author, leading sociologist and economist Juliet Schor makes the case for a four-day work week, persuasively showing how this model can address major challenges such as burnout, AI and the climate crisis, and how employees, companies, and governments can work together to make it a reality.
By: Juliet Schor
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Bird by Bird
- Some Instructions on Writing and Life
- By: Anne Lamott
- Narrated by: Anne Lamott
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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For a quarter century, more than a million readers and listeners—scribes and scribblers of all ages and abilities—have been inspired by Anne Lamott’s hilarious, big-hearted, homespun advice. Advice that begins with the simple words of wisdom passed down from Anne’s father—also a writer—in the iconic passage that gives the book its title.
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Why oh why did she narrate this?!
- By Amor Fati on 01-02-23
By: Anne Lamott
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Me, but Better
- By: Olga Khazan
- Narrated by: Olga Khazan
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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In recent years, Olga Khazan had been spiraling toward an existential crisis. Though she treasured her loving, long-term relationship and her dream job, she often caught herself snatching dissatisfaction from the jaws of happiness. Her neurotic overachieving had always been a professional asset, but lately, Olga felt that her brittle disposition could shatter under the weight of just one more thing. She knew something had to give—but was it really possible to change her entire approach to life?
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Great for introverts who want to be more social
- By ShawnaJ on 03-19-25
By: Olga Khazan
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Goldenrod
- Poems
- By: Maggie Smith
- Narrated by: Maggie Smith
- Length: 1 hr and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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With her breakout bestseller Keep Moving, Maggie Smith captured the nation with her “meditations on kindness and hope” (NPR). Now, with Goldenrod, the award-winning poet returns with a powerful collection of poems that look at parenthood, solitude, love, and memory.
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Powerful Collection
- By BookishMarginalia on 07-28-21
By: Maggie Smith
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Enough
- Climbing Toward a True Self on Mount Everest
- By: Melissa Arnot Reid
- Narrated by: Melissa Arnot Reid
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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At twenty-seven, when Melissa Arnot Reid accepted a tank of oxygen just short of the summit of Mount Everest, she felt ravaged by defeat. Driven by a relentless, lifelong quest to prove to herself, her family, and the world that she was enough, she had set herself an incredible goal—to become the first American woman to summit Everest without supplemental oxygen. The failure battered her spirit and left her struggling to keep her tenuous grip on hope.
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Astonishingly brave story about finding oneself through darkness
- By Meg Taylor on 05-07-25
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On Becoming a Novelist
- By: John Gardner
- Narrated by: Anthony Haden Salerno
- Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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On Becoming a Novelist contains the wisdom accumulated during John Gardner's distinguished twenty-year career as a fiction writer and creative writing teacher. With elegance, humor, and sophistication, Gardner describes the life of a working novelist; warns what needs to be guarded against, both from within the writer and from without; and predicts what the writer can reasonably expect and what, in general, he or she cannot.
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Great book, slightly irritating narration.
- By mahoneko on 06-06-15
By: John Gardner
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The Next Day
- Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward
- By: Melinda French Gates
- Narrated by: Melinda French Gates
- Length: 3 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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In a rare window into some of her life’s pivotal moments, Melinda French Gates draws from previously untold stories to offer a new perspective on encountering transitions. Melinda will reflect on some of the most significant transitions in her own life, including becoming a parent, the death of a dear friend, and her departure from the Gates Foundation. The stories she tells illuminate universal lessons about loosening the bonds of perfectionism, helping friends navigate times of crisis, embracing uncertainty, and more.
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So much wisdom
- By Michelle Hicks on 04-16-25