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The True Subject: Writers on Life and Craft by Kurt Brown (Editor)

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Selected lectures from writers' conferences on the art and craft of finding and using artistic inspiration feature the works of Jane Smiley, Gary Snyder, Miroslav Holub, and Mary Clearman Blew Editorial Reviews Amazon.com Review These fourteen thought-provoked essays originated as lectures delivered at a variety of writers conferences. In Can Mothers Think?, Jane Smiley addresses the failure of literature to include mothers and argues that such authors as Toni Morrison, Sue Miller, Alice Walker, and Louise Erdrich are creating a new literature, the literature of real, live motherhood. Gary Snyder, at the Art of the Wild Conference in Squaw Valley, claims that like ecosystems, consciousness, mind, imagination, and language are fundamentally wild, while over at the Paris Writers Conference, Julian Gloag laments the tentativeness of students who haven't been trained to think. Michael Dennis Browne proposes that it is a sense of constantly failing to reach perfection that propels us to continue writing; Donald Justice, similarly, discusses the elusiveness of the ideal. Thanks to editor Kurt Brown, we can consume the lean, nourishing meat of the conferences without having first to pick our way through the fat. --Jane Steinberg From Publishers Weekly This anthology of 14 essays, first delivered as lectures at several writers' conferences around the country, contains some wisdom and inspiration but lacks coherence. Jane Smiley reflects thoughtfully on the extreme paucity of mothers, and of the tradition of a maternal vision in our literary culture, and suggests that a new literature of real, live motherhood is being forged. Christopher Merrill, reporting on a writers' conference in Slovenia, finds the famous panelists ignoring the nearby Bosnian war and instead haranguing the U.S. government about copyright law. William Kittredge, citing the disenfranchised, suggests, We need stories that will encourage us toward acts of the imagination that in turn will drive us to the arts of empathy. Agha Shahid Ali criticizes American ethnocentrism for ignoring Faiz Ahmed Faiz, a great Pakistani poet who wrote from Beirut and whose death was front-page news in the Middle East and elsewhere. Several lectures, however, are slight, and despite the book's title, few pieces address the craft of writing. Brown, former director of the Aspen Writers' Conference, is co-founder of Writers' Conferences and Festivals. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Edited by the president of Writers' Conferences and Festivals, this anthology of 14 lectures delivered by writers to various writers' conferences begins with Jane Smiley's thoughts on the difficulty of truly writing from a mother's point of view (men just can't do it). Christopher Merrill contributes a standout piece from the fringe of the Balkan civil war. In the title piece, Agha Shalid Ali analyzes the work of Faed Ahmed Faiz, arguing that the politics of exclusion keep Faiz little known in the United States. A few pieces stray as they analyze particular works, but most of these writers are discussing writing itself, not another writer; this is the book's strength. Writing instructors will find good material in this collection to spark discussion. Writers will find some inspiration, insight, and laughs. Recommended for academic and public libraries. - Robert Moore, DuPont Merck Pharmaceutical Co. Information Svcs., N. Billerica, Mass. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Publication Details

Title: The True Subject: Writers on Life and Craft

Author(s):

  • Kurt Brown (editor)

Illustrator:

Binding: Paperback

Published by: Graywolf Pr: , 1993

Edition:

ISBN: 9781555971816 | 1555971814

151 pages. 5.75 x 0.5 x 9 inches

  • ENG- English
Book Condition: Very Good
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