Research Writing

Writing historical fiction involves more than taking a story and substituting carriages for cars. The historical novelist must do her best to understand the mind-set of the people she writes about, even while she explores the timeless and universal desires common to human beings of every time and place. This book describes historical fiction, tells the writer how to research, construct an authentic historic story world, and make the reader feel as though he or she is in the midst of the action.

Steve Almond shares the insights gleaned from three decades as a beloved teacher and mentor, and a considerably less-beloved literary rabble rouser. His tone is irreverent. His ideas are iconoclastic. And his approach is stubbornly, radically, empathic. The goal is to explode the well-meaning but misguided myths that hold us back from writing our deepest and most honest work, to awaken the joys of storytelling while also confronting how grueling the process can be.

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.

Delve into the labyrinth of Jorge Luis Borges’s thoughts on the theory and practice of literature, and learn from one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century not only what a writer does but also what a writer is. For the first time ever, here is a volume that brings together Borges’s wide-ranging reflections on writers, on the canon, on the craft of fiction and poetry, and on translation—an ars poetica of one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers.

Here, against a backdrop of late-night tattoo sessions and soldier-of-fortune trade shows, Dr. Thompson is at his apocalyptic best - covering emblematic events such as the 1987-88 presidential campaign, with Vice President George Bush, Sr., fighting for his life against Republican competitors like Alexander Haig, Pat Buchanan, and Pat Robertson; detailing the GOP's obsession with drugs and drug abuse; while at the same time capturing momentous social phenomena as they occurred, like the rise of cable, satellite TV, and CNN - 24 hours of mainline news.

In The Content Fuel Framework, trained journalist and award-winning content marketer Melanie Deziel shows you how to maximize your creativity by systematizing it. No more writer's block. No more asking, "what should I post"? How can you fill all those web pages, social feeds, blogs, and newsletters, every single day? The Content Fuel Framework will challenge you - and enable you - to tell stories in entirely new ways. It's an adaptable and evergreen guide you'll come back to again and again.

Conceived nearly a century ago by a man who died believing himself a failure, it's now a revered classic and a rite of passage in the reading lives of millions. But how well do we really know The Great Gatsby? As Maureen Corrigan, Gatsby lover extraordinaire, points out, while Fitzgerald's masterpiece may be one of the most popular novels in America, many of us first read it when we were too young to fully comprehend its power.

An urgent account of the revolution that has upended the news business, authored by one of the most accomplished journalists of our time.

Everything you've ever wanted to know about publishing but were too afraid to ask is right here in this funny, candid guide by acclaimed author Courtney Maum. Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer's Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book has over 150 contributors from all walks of the industry, including internationally best-selling authors Anthony Doerr, Roxane Gay, Garth Greenwell, Lisa Ko, R. O. Kwon, Rebecca Makkai, and Ottessa Moshfegh, alongside cult favorites Sarah Gerard, Melissa Febos, Mitchell S. Jackson, and Mira Jacob.

Ask a scientist about Hollywood, and you'll probably get eye rolls. But ask someone in Hollywood about science, and they'll see dollar signs: Moviemakers know that science can be the source of great stories, with all the drama and action that blockbusters require. That's a huge mistake, says Randy Olson: Hollywood has a lot to teach scientists about how to tell a story - and, ultimately, how to do science better. With Houston, We Have a Narrative, he lays out a stunningly simple method for turning the dull into the dramatic.

It's not easy for an entrepreneur to get a bank loan, find investors, and make it to the top of your industry. Many business owners find themselves overwhelmed in their business planning process, or even worse, they outsource the planning to an unqualified professional.

Since 1844, the Globe and Mail and its predecessor, George Brown’s Globe, have chronicled Canada: as a colony, a dominion, and a nation. To mark the paper’s 180th anniversary, Globe writers explored thirty issues and events in which the national newspaper has influenced the course of the country: Confederation, settler migrations, regional tensions, tussles over language, religion, and race. The essays reveal a tapestry of progress, conflict, and still-incomplete reconciliation.

Rand takes listeners step by step through the writing process, providing insightful observations and invaluable techniques along the way. She discusses the psychological aspects of writing and the roles played by the conscious and subconscious mind. She talks about articles and books, explaining how to select a subject and theme, how to identify your audience, and how to write the first draft.

Finally—a book of writing advice that accounts for all of the messy, perverse, practical, and inexplicable parts of being a human who writes.

Between 1999 and 2017, an estimated 250,000 Americans died from overdoses involving prescription painkillers, a plague ignited by Purdue Pharma’s aggressive marketing of OxyContin. Families, working class and wealthy, have been torn apart, businesses destroyed, and public officials pushed to the brink. Meanwhile, the drugmaker’s owners, Raymond and Mortimer Sackler, whose names adorn museums worldwide, made enormous fortunes from the commercial success of OxyContin.

The Story Grid is a tool developed by editor Shawn Coyne to analyze stories and provide helpful editorial comments. It's like a CT Scan that takes a photo of the global story and tells the editor or writer what is working, what is not, and what must be done to make what works better and fix what's not. The Story Grid breaks down the component parts of stories to identify the problems. And finding the problems in a story is almost as difficult as the writing of the story itself (maybe even more difficult).

Legendary writing coach Jack Hart spent 26 years at The Oregonian and has taught students and professionals of all stripes, including bloggers, podcasters, and more than one Pulitzer Prize winner. Good writing, he says, has the same basic attributes regardless of genre or medium. Wordcraft shares Hart’s techniques for achieving those attributes in one of the most broadly useful writing books ever written. Originally published in 2006 as A Writer’s Coach, the book has been updated to address the needs of writers well beyond print journalists.

Edited and annotated by H. L. M., this is a selection from his out-of-print writings. They come mostly from books - the six installments of the Prejudices series, A Book of Burlesques, In Defense of Women, Notes on Democracy, Making a President, A Book of Calumny, Treatise on Right and Wrong - but there are also magazine and newspaper pieces that never got between covers (from the American Mercury, the Smart Set, and the Baltimore Evening Sun) and some notes that were never previously published at all.

Mystery Writers of America (MWA) is known for providing unparalleled resources on the craft, art, and business of storytelling, helping writers of all levels improve their skills for nearly a century. Now, this new handbook helps authors navigate the ever-shifting publishing landscape - from pacing, plotting, the business side of publishing, to the current demand for diversity and inclusivity across all genres, and more.

Be more effective on the job! Communicate like a native speaker of English! American English speakers use many phrases and expressions on the job. If you don’t know these expressions, you’re left out of the conversation. You’re out of it...and nothing makes you feel so much like a foreigner. Speak Business English Like an American will help you speak Business English like an American - quickly and confidently. You’ll hear the idioms & expressions used in everyday speech in American workplaces.