
Dear Writer
Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Buy for $14.99
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Maggie Smith
-
By:
-
Maggie Smith
About this listen
INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER
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...
-
Keep Moving
- Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change
- By: Maggie Smith
- Narrated by: Maggie Smith
- Length: 2 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Maggie Smith, the award-winning author of the viral poem "Good Bones", started writing inspirational daily Twitter posts in the wake of her divorce, they unexpectedly caught fire. In this deeply moving book of quotes and essays, Maggie writes about new beginnings as opportunities for transformation. Like kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken ceramics with gold, Keep Moving celebrates the beauty and strength on the other side of loss. This is a book for anyone who has gone through a difficult time and is wondering: What comes next?
-
-
This is not THAT Maggie Smith
- By Scribezilla on 10-16-20
By: Maggie Smith
-
You Could Make This Place Beautiful
- A Memoir
- By: Maggie Smith
- Narrated by: Maggie Smith
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself in lyrical vignettes that shine, hard and clear as jewels. The book begins with one woman’s personal, particular heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes.
-
-
Beautiful, relatable, profound
- By Betty Blue on 04-16-23
By: Maggie Smith
-
Goldenrod
- Poems
- By: Maggie Smith
- Narrated by: Maggie Smith
- Length: 1 hr and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Powerful Collection
- By BookishMarginalia on 07-28-21
By: Maggie Smith
-
Writing on Empty
- A Guide to Finding Your Voice
- By: Natalie Goldberg
- Narrated by: Natalie Goldberg
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Natalie Goldberg has been writing for the past fifty years. But at the beginning of the pandemic, she suddenly wasn’t able to write anymore. Her imaginative wellspring had dried up, and she was forced to ask herself: what do I do when what has always worked for me doesn’t work anymore? In this beautifully written, inspiring personal account, Natalie shares her harrowing journey out of creative paralysis and back onto the page.
-
-
A zen -tour de force!
- By Innocent Bystander on 07-24-24
By: Natalie Goldberg
-
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Refreshing
- By Danielle on 06-15-21
By: Roy Peter Clark
-
Permission
- The New Memoirist and the Courage to Create
- By: Elissa Altman
- Narrated by: Elissa Altman
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Exceptional storytelling
- By dana dunn on 03-27-25
By: Elissa Altman
-
Keep Moving
- Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change
- By: Maggie Smith
- Narrated by: Maggie Smith
- Length: 2 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Maggie Smith, the award-winning author of the viral poem "Good Bones", started writing inspirational daily Twitter posts in the wake of her divorce, they unexpectedly caught fire. In this deeply moving book of quotes and essays, Maggie writes about new beginnings as opportunities for transformation. Like kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken ceramics with gold, Keep Moving celebrates the beauty and strength on the other side of loss. This is a book for anyone who has gone through a difficult time and is wondering: What comes next?
-
-
This is not THAT Maggie Smith
- By Scribezilla on 10-16-20
By: Maggie Smith
-
You Could Make This Place Beautiful
- A Memoir
- By: Maggie Smith
- Narrated by: Maggie Smith
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself in lyrical vignettes that shine, hard and clear as jewels. The book begins with one woman’s personal, particular heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes.
-
-
Beautiful, relatable, profound
- By Betty Blue on 04-16-23
By: Maggie Smith
-
Goldenrod
- Poems
- By: Maggie Smith
- Narrated by: Maggie Smith
- Length: 1 hr and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Powerful Collection
- By BookishMarginalia on 07-28-21
By: Maggie Smith
-
Writing on Empty
- A Guide to Finding Your Voice
- By: Natalie Goldberg
- Narrated by: Natalie Goldberg
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Natalie Goldberg has been writing for the past fifty years. But at the beginning of the pandemic, she suddenly wasn’t able to write anymore. Her imaginative wellspring had dried up, and she was forced to ask herself: what do I do when what has always worked for me doesn’t work anymore? In this beautifully written, inspiring personal account, Natalie shares her harrowing journey out of creative paralysis and back onto the page.
-
-
A zen -tour de force!
- By Innocent Bystander on 07-24-24
By: Natalie Goldberg
-
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Refreshing
- By Danielle on 06-15-21
By: Roy Peter Clark
-
Permission
- The New Memoirist and the Courage to Create
- By: Elissa Altman
- Narrated by: Elissa Altman
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Exceptional storytelling
- By dana dunn on 03-27-25
By: Elissa Altman
-
We Need Your Art
- Stop Messing Around and Make Something
- By: Amie McNee
- Narrated by: Amie McNee
- Length: 6 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Amie McNee, the voice behind Inspired to Write, a manifesto on the vital, human importance of creating, with guidance for all artists in all endeavors, whether they're starting their journey or seeking a fresh perspective. In We Need Your Art, Amie McNee calls artists and aspiring artists of all kinds to do the work they’re meant to do: create.
-
-
Exactly what the world needs
- By Christine on 06-15-25
By: Amie McNee
-
Writing Down the Bones
- By: Natalie Goldberg
- Narrated by: Natalie Goldberg
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is a new collector's edition of this modern classic as you have never heard it before, read by Natalie Goldberg herself and then infused with her most personal reflections about this "magic manual" for all writers. Try these ingenious, Zen-based exercises to expand your writing skills - or just for fun.
-
-
The Substance
- By Krissy D. on 07-09-10
By: Natalie Goldberg
-
Write for Life
- Creative Tools for Every Writer (A 6-Week Artist's Way Program)
- By: Julia Cameron
- Narrated by: Eliza Foss
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Julia Cameron has been teaching the world about creativity since her seminal book, The Artist’s Way, first broke open the conversation around art. Now, in Write for Life, she turns to one of the subjects closest to her heart: the art and practice of writing. Over the course of six weeks, Cameron carefully guides listeners step by step through the creative process. With the learned experience of a lifetime of writing, Cameron gives listeners practical tools to start, pursue, and finish their writing project.
-
-
Saccharine reading
- By Ursula on 01-17-23
By: Julia Cameron
-
The Book of Alchemy
- A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life
- By: Suleika Jaouad
- Narrated by: Suleika Jaouad, Vidish Athavale, Fabian Cook Jr., and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the time she was young, Suleika Jaouad has kept a journal. She’s used it to mark life's biggest occasions and to weather its most ferocious storms. Journaling has buoyed her through illness, heartbreak, and the deepest uncertainty. And she is not alone: for so many people, keeping a journal is an essential tool for navigating both the personal peaks and valleys and the collective challenges of modern life. More than ever, we need a space for puzzling through.
-
-
Suleika is a gift
- By Amazon Customer on 05-17-25
By: Suleika Jaouad
-
Story Structure: The Key to Successful Fiction
- The Red Sneaker Writers Book Series, Volume 1
- By: William Bernhardt
- Narrated by: William Bernhardt
- Length: 2 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Writing is structure,” William Goldman said, but too often aspiring writers plunge into their work without grasping this fundamental principle. Story structure is one of the most important concepts for a writer to understand - and ironically, one of the least frequently taught. In this book, New York Times best-selling author William Bernhardt explains the elements that make stories work, using examples spanning from Gilgamesh to The Hunger Games.
-
-
Book is an Infomercial
- By Crystal White on 03-11-15
-
Notes to John
- By: Joan Didion
- Narrated by: Julianne Moore
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In November 1999, Joan Didion began seeing a psychiatrist because, as she wrote to a friend, her family had had “a rough few years.” She described the sessions in a journal she created for her husband, John Gregory Dunne. For several months, Didion recorded conversations with the psychiatrist in meticulous detail. The initial sessions focused on alcoholism, adoption, depression, anxiety, guilt, and the heartbreaking complexities of her relationship with her daughter, Quintana. The subjects evolved to include her work, which she was finding difficult to maintain for sustained periods.
-
-
This autobiography discusses notes from therapy regarding Joan’s daughter’s addiction. Very insightful!
- By Laura Borealis on 04-24-25
By: Joan Didion
-
The Way of the Fearless Writer
- Mindful Wisdom for a Flourishing Writing Life
- By: Beth Kempton
- Narrated by: Beth Kempton
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You are invited to embark on a sacred writing journey. Along the way, author Beth Kempton will teach you how to free your mind so your body can create, transform your relationship to fear, write anytime, anywhere, and share your words with confidence. Being a fearless writer has little to do with validation and accolades. Rather it is about ritual, commitment, developing an acute awareness of beauty, dancing with inspiration, listening to the world outside yourself and going deep within. The Way of the Fearless Writer is your guide to this creative, transformational journey.
-
-
The bellows that blew new life into my writing.
- By Brian Graham on 01-20-25
By: Beth Kempton
-
Bird by Bird
- Some Instructions on Writing and Life
- By: Anne Lamott
- Narrated by: Anne Lamott
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Why oh why did she narrate this?!
- By Amor Fati on 01-02-23
By: Anne Lamott
-
The Book You Were Born to Write
- Everything You Need to (Finally) Get Your Wisdom onto the Page and into the World
- By: Kelly Notaras
- Narrated by: Kelly Notaras
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A guide to writing a full-length transformational nonfiction book, from an editor with two decades' experience working with authors from all walks of life.
-
-
Both Funny and Informative
- By Emily C. Maher on 02-15-21
By: Kelly Notaras
-
The Power of Writing It Down
- A Simple Habit to Unlock Your Brain and Reimagine Your Life
- By: Allison Fallon
- Narrated by: Allison Fallon
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For anyone who's trying to make sense of their life, who wants to get unstuck from the patterns that hold them back, hear this incredible news: everything you need for the freedom you want is entirely within reach. This practice and pathway is free, it's readily available every day of your life, it takes just minutes of your time, and anyone can do it.
-
-
Er...
- By Sarah on 01-18-21
By: Allison Fallon
-
Modern Poetry
- Poems
- By: Diane Seuss
- Narrated by: Diane Seuss
- Length: 2 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Diane Seuss's signature voice—audacious in its honesty, virtuosic in its artistry, outsider in its attitude—has become one of the most original in contemporary poetry. Her latest collection takes its title, Modern Poetry, from the first textbook Seuss encountered as a child and the first poetry course she took in college, as an enrapt but ill-equipped student, one who felt poetry was beyond her reach. Many of the poems make use of the forms and terms of musical and poetic craft and contend with the works of writers overrepresented in textbooks and anthologies and those often underrepresented.
By: Diane Seuss
-
Refuse to Be Done
- How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts
- By: Matt Bell
- Narrated by: Matthew Boston
- Length: 3 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They say writing is rewriting. So why does the second part get such short shrift? Refuse to Be Done will guide you through every step of the novel writing process, from getting started on those first pages to the last tips for making your final draft even tighter and stronger.
-
-
many great tips
- By lauren on 06-30-24
By: Matt Bell
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Keep Moving
- Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change
- By: Maggie Smith
- Narrated by: Maggie Smith
- Length: 2 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Maggie Smith, the award-winning author of the viral poem "Good Bones", started writing inspirational daily Twitter posts in the wake of her divorce, they unexpectedly caught fire. In this deeply moving book of quotes and essays, Maggie writes about new beginnings as opportunities for transformation. Like kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken ceramics with gold, Keep Moving celebrates the beauty and strength on the other side of loss. This is a book for anyone who has gone through a difficult time and is wondering: What comes next?
-
-
This is not THAT Maggie Smith
- By Scribezilla on 10-16-20
By: Maggie Smith
-
You Could Make This Place Beautiful
- A Memoir
- By: Maggie Smith
- Narrated by: Maggie Smith
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself in lyrical vignettes that shine, hard and clear as jewels. The book begins with one woman’s personal, particular heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes.
-
-
Beautiful, relatable, profound
- By Betty Blue on 04-16-23
By: Maggie Smith
-
Resurface
- A Guide to Navigating Life's Biggest Transitions
- By: Cassidy Krug
- Narrated by: Cassidy Krug
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Life is nothing other than a series of transitions. Whether you’re graduating from college and trying to decide what’s next, coping with divorce, putting the pieces back together after a death or a diagnosis, moving to a new city, or thinking about leaving one career path for another, these transitions—planned or unplanned—are an inevitable part of life.
-
-
I immediately started using what I learned in listening to this book. You will too! I highly recommend giving it a listen!
- By Shana on 06-15-25
By: Cassidy Krug
-
The Book of Alchemy
- A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life
- By: Suleika Jaouad
- Narrated by: Suleika Jaouad, Vidish Athavale, Fabian Cook Jr., and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the time she was young, Suleika Jaouad has kept a journal. She’s used it to mark life's biggest occasions and to weather its most ferocious storms. Journaling has buoyed her through illness, heartbreak, and the deepest uncertainty. And she is not alone: for so many people, keeping a journal is an essential tool for navigating both the personal peaks and valleys and the collective challenges of modern life. More than ever, we need a space for puzzling through.
-
-
Suleika is a gift
- By Amazon Customer on 05-17-25
By: Suleika Jaouad
-
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Refreshing
- By Danielle on 06-15-21
By: Roy Peter Clark
-
1000 Words
- A Writer's Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All-Year Round
- By: Jami Attenberg
- Narrated by: Jami Attenberg, Kamali Minter, Joy Osmanski, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2018, novelist Jami Attenberg, faced with a looming deadline, needed writing inspiration. Using a bootcamp model, she and a friend set out to write one thousand words daily for two weeks straight. They opened this practice to Attenberg’s online community and soon hundreds then thousands of people started using the #1000WordsofSummer hashtag to track their work and support one another. What began as a simple challenge between two friends has become a literary movement—write 1,000 words per day without judgement, or bias, or concerns about writer’s block, and see what comes of it.
-
-
Amazing book on craft!!!
- By Inna on 02-29-24
By: Jami Attenberg
-
Keep Moving
- Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change
- By: Maggie Smith
- Narrated by: Maggie Smith
- Length: 2 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Maggie Smith, the award-winning author of the viral poem "Good Bones", started writing inspirational daily Twitter posts in the wake of her divorce, they unexpectedly caught fire. In this deeply moving book of quotes and essays, Maggie writes about new beginnings as opportunities for transformation. Like kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken ceramics with gold, Keep Moving celebrates the beauty and strength on the other side of loss. This is a book for anyone who has gone through a difficult time and is wondering: What comes next?
-
-
This is not THAT Maggie Smith
- By Scribezilla on 10-16-20
By: Maggie Smith
-
You Could Make This Place Beautiful
- A Memoir
- By: Maggie Smith
- Narrated by: Maggie Smith
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself in lyrical vignettes that shine, hard and clear as jewels. The book begins with one woman’s personal, particular heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes.
-
-
Beautiful, relatable, profound
- By Betty Blue on 04-16-23
By: Maggie Smith
-
Resurface
- A Guide to Navigating Life's Biggest Transitions
- By: Cassidy Krug
- Narrated by: Cassidy Krug
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Life is nothing other than a series of transitions. Whether you’re graduating from college and trying to decide what’s next, coping with divorce, putting the pieces back together after a death or a diagnosis, moving to a new city, or thinking about leaving one career path for another, these transitions—planned or unplanned—are an inevitable part of life.
-
-
I immediately started using what I learned in listening to this book. You will too! I highly recommend giving it a listen!
- By Shana on 06-15-25
By: Cassidy Krug
-
The Book of Alchemy
- A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life
- By: Suleika Jaouad
- Narrated by: Suleika Jaouad, Vidish Athavale, Fabian Cook Jr., and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the time she was young, Suleika Jaouad has kept a journal. She’s used it to mark life's biggest occasions and to weather its most ferocious storms. Journaling has buoyed her through illness, heartbreak, and the deepest uncertainty. And she is not alone: for so many people, keeping a journal is an essential tool for navigating both the personal peaks and valleys and the collective challenges of modern life. More than ever, we need a space for puzzling through.
-
-
Suleika is a gift
- By Amazon Customer on 05-17-25
By: Suleika Jaouad
-
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Refreshing
- By Danielle on 06-15-21
By: Roy Peter Clark
-
1000 Words
- A Writer's Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All-Year Round
- By: Jami Attenberg
- Narrated by: Jami Attenberg, Kamali Minter, Joy Osmanski, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2018, novelist Jami Attenberg, faced with a looming deadline, needed writing inspiration. Using a bootcamp model, she and a friend set out to write one thousand words daily for two weeks straight. They opened this practice to Attenberg’s online community and soon hundreds then thousands of people started using the #1000WordsofSummer hashtag to track their work and support one another. What began as a simple challenge between two friends has become a literary movement—write 1,000 words per day without judgement, or bias, or concerns about writer’s block, and see what comes of it.
-
-
Amazing book on craft!!!
- By Inna on 02-29-24
By: Jami Attenberg
-
Maggie Smith
- A Biography
- By: Michael Coveney
- Narrated by: Sian Thomas
- Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No one does glamour, severity, girlish charm, or tight-lipped witticism better than Dame Maggie Smith. Michael Coveney's biography shines a light on the life and career of a truly remarkable performer, one whose stage and screen career spans six decades.
-
-
Steeped in Theater History
- By Jean on 01-04-16
By: Michael Coveney
-
Permission
- The New Memoirist and the Courage to Create
- By: Elissa Altman
- Narrated by: Elissa Altman
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Exceptional storytelling
- By dana dunn on 03-27-25
By: Elissa Altman
-
How to Submit
- Getting Your Writing Published with Literary Magazines and Small Presses
- By: Dennis James Sweeney
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This essential guide is the first of its kind to chart a path to publication that is writer led, community based, and accessible to all. How to Submit speaks to writers who want to publish short stories, essays, or poems in literary magazines, as well as to those looking for a fresh route to publishing a full-length book. Whether you’re a first-time submitter or you have experience sending out your work, How to Submit provides you with the tools and knowledge to successfully share your writing.
-
Bird by Bird
- Some Instructions on Writing and Life
- By: Anne Lamott
- Narrated by: Anne Lamott
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Why oh why did she narrate this?!
- By Amor Fati on 01-02-23
By: Anne Lamott
-
Goldenrod
- Poems
- By: Maggie Smith
- Narrated by: Maggie Smith
- Length: 1 hr and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Powerful Collection
- By BookishMarginalia on 07-28-21
By: Maggie Smith
-
Always Kiss Me Goodbye
- By: Jennifer Osler-Bolton
- Narrated by: Jennifer Osler-Bolton
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After losing her high school sweetheart, Ryan, a California firefighter, in the line of duty, Jennifer was left to rebuild her life as a young widow with two children. Struggling to navigate grief and questioning God’s plan, Jennifer’s journey takes an unexpected turn when she meets Michael, a firefighter from Northern Ireland, years later at an event in California. Despite the odds and miles between them, their undeniable connection reveals a shared history, launching them into an unplanned, but divinely orchestrated, future together.
-
-
You won't want to put this down...
- By Monica Thompson on 04-09-25
-
Write Great Scenes
- Master Techniques to Create Scenes That Keep Readers Enthralled
- By: Meg Leader
- Narrated by: Virtual Voice
- Length: 1 hr and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
DO YOU want readers to find your stories un-put-downable?DO YOU want to create stories readers love? WRITE GREAT SCENES gives you a key set of tools to becoming a writer whose works readers can't stop reading. The most fundamental building block of any novel isn't the character or the plot or anything except the scenes. If you learn how to write great scenes you'll be well on your way to creating novels readers can't put down. This book breaks down what makes a great scene, the four critical elements every great scene needs, and provides you with an entire toolkit of Page-Turner Techniques ...
-
-
I have mixed feelings about this.
- By Suzanne Davis on 11-17-24
By: Meg Leader
-
Writing on Empty
- A Guide to Finding Your Voice
- By: Natalie Goldberg
- Narrated by: Natalie Goldberg
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Natalie Goldberg has been writing for the past fifty years. But at the beginning of the pandemic, she suddenly wasn’t able to write anymore. Her imaginative wellspring had dried up, and she was forced to ask herself: what do I do when what has always worked for me doesn’t work anymore? In this beautifully written, inspiring personal account, Natalie shares her harrowing journey out of creative paralysis and back onto the page.
-
-
A zen -tour de force!
- By Innocent Bystander on 07-24-24
By: Natalie Goldberg
-
Hello, Cruel World!
- Science-Based Strategies for Raising Terrific Kids in Terrifying Times
- By: Melinda Wenner Moyer
- Narrated by: Melinda Wenner Moyer
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the blink of an eye, our kids will be adults facing countless serious threats—climate change, gun violence, political polarization, and disinformation, to name but a few. We’re not going to be able to solve all these intractable problems before our kids grow up—so how are we to prepare them for an impossibly complex and scary future? Plagued by this question, award-winning science journalist Melinda Wenner Moyer interviewed parenting experts and researchers across multiple fields—psychology, education, information literacy, technology, business, and even addiction.
-
Writing Creativity and Soul
- By: Sue Monk Kidd
- Length: 8 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Sue Monk Kidd was in high school, a home economics teacher wrote a list of potential occupations for women on the blackboard: teacher, nurse, librarian, secretary. “Writer” was nowhere to be found. On that day, Kidd shut the door on her writerly aspirations and would not revisit the topic until many years later when she announced to her husband and two children that she was going to become a writer. And so began her journey into the mysteries and methods of the writerly life.
By: Sue Monk Kidd
-
Story Genius
- How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel (Before You Waste Three Years Writing 327 Pages That Go Nowhere)
- By: Lisa Cron
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's every novelist's greatest fear: pouring their blood, sweat, and tears into writing hundreds of pages only to realize that their story has no sense of urgency, no internal logic, and so is a page-one rewrite. The prevailing wisdom in the writing community is that there are just two ways around this problem: pantsing (winging it) and plotting (focusing on the external plot).
-
-
As a fantasy writer, this book was not for me.
- By Wendy on 01-10-21
By: Lisa Cron
-
On Writing
- A Memoir of the Craft
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Stephen King, Joe Hill, Owen King
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“Long live the King” hailed Entertainment Weekly upon publication of Stephen King’s On Writing. Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer’s craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have. King’s advice is grounded in his vivid memories from childhood through his emergence as a writer, from his struggling early career to his widely reported, near-fatal accident in 1999—and how the inextricable link between writing and living spurred his recovery.
-
-
Who needs a print edition when King reads King?
- By Cather on 11-18-05
By: Stephen King
Very good pep-talk for writers!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.