An indispensable and distinctive book that will help anyone who wants to write, write better, or have a clearer understanding of what it means for them to be writing, from widely admired writer and teacher Verlyn Klinkenborg.
Klinkenborg believes that most of our received wisdom about how writing works is not only wrong but an obstacle to our ability to write. In Several Short Sentences About Writing, he sets out to help us unlearn that "wisdom"-about genius, about creativity, about writer's block, topic sentences, and outline-and understand that writing is just as much about thinking, noticing, and learning what it means to be involved in the act of writing. There is no gospel, no orthodoxy, no dogma in this book. Instead it is a gathering of starting points in a journey toward lively, lucid, satisfying self-expression.
An indispensable and distinctive book that will help anyone who wants to write, write better, or have a clearer understanding of what it means for them to be writing, from widely admired writer and teacher Verlyn Klinkenborg.
Klinkenborg believes that most of our received wisdom about how writing works is not only wrong but an obstacle to our ability to write. In Several Short Sentences About Writing, he sets out to help us unlearn that "wisdom"-about genius, about creativity, about writer's block, topic sentences, and outline-and understand that writing is just as much about thinking, noticing, and learning what it means to be involved in the act of writing. There is no gospel, no orthodoxy, no dogma in this book. Instead it is a gathering of starting points in a journey toward lively, lucid, satisfying self-expression.
Verlyn Klinkenborg is a member of the editorial board of The New York Times, to which he also contributes meditations about his farm in upstate New York, collected in The Rural Life. His other books include Making Hay, The Last Fine Time, and Timothy; or, Notes of an Abject Reptile. Klinkenborg has a Ph.D. in English literature from Princeton University.
Praise for Verlyn Klinkenborg's Several Short Sentences About
Writing:
“No other book, old or new, is as well reasoned as this, as
entertaining or as wise. . . . Best book on writing. Ever. . . . To
paraphrase Voltaire’s statement concerning the Almighty, ‘if Verlyn
Klinkenborg did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.’
Because having read Several Short Sentences About Writing, I do not
think that it would be possible to not have this book on hand. . .
. Indeed, no other book is as filled with as much grounded,
practical advice for putting words to the paper or electronic page
or gives better, more helpful exercises.”
—New York Journal of Books
“Powerful . . . each sentence miraculously contains an idea or
insight that lesser writers would have milked for several
pages.”
—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“An exceptionally interesting and useful book about writing.”
—Tom McGuane
“A fresh perspective on writing that goes against conventional
classroom theory.”
—Shelf Awareness
“Klinkenborg does away with much of the traditional wisdom on
writing and dissects the sentence—its structure, its intention, its
semantic craftsmanship—to deliver a new, useful, and direct guide
to the art of storytelling.”
—Brain Pickings
“Expertise and zeal are required for an established writer to offer
genuinely useful guidance to aspiring writers. It also helps if the
writer teaches writing, as Klinkenborg has for many years. . . .
The result is a unique anatomy of the sentence and the writing mind
and a clarifying and invigorating ‘book of first steps.’”
—Booklist
"This is a very interesting little book about writing. Modest.
Learned. Good-natured. Direct and sympathetic to its readers. You
don't even have to read it front to back (probably you couldn't,
anyway). You can just open it anywhere—as I did—and take away
something useful."
—Richard Ford
“There have been good books on grammar and style, some classics,
but none to compare to this one for understanding where sentences
come from in the first place, where their vitality is found, and
what distinguishes their energy, their authenticity, and
their prospects for life after birth—that is, the art of revision.
This book's long future will be a testament to its author's
principles.”
—Tom McGuane
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