Research Writing

From drawing a map of a remembered neighborhood to signing a form releasing yourself to take risks in your work, Roorbach offers innovative techniques that will trigger ideas for all writers. Writing Life Stories is a classic text that appears on countless creative nonfiction and composition syllabi the world over. This updated 10th anniversary edition gives you the same friendly instruction and stimulating exercises along with updated information on current memoir writing trends, ethics, internet research, and even marketing ideas.

In the 18th century, two men dedicated their lives to the same daunting task: identifying and describing all life on Earth. Their approaches could not have been more different. Carl Linnaeus, a pious Swedish doctor with a huckster's flair, believed that life belonged in tidy, static categories. Georges-Louis de Buffon, an aristocratic polymath and keeper of France's royal garden, viewed life as a dynamic swirl of complexities. Both began believing their work to be difficult, but not impossible—how could the planet possibly hold more than a few thousand species?

For over a century, The New York Times has been an iconic institution in American journalism, one whose history is intertwined with the events that it chronicles—a newspaper read by millions of people every day to stay informed about events that have taken place across the globe. In The Times, Adam Nagourney, who’s worked at The New York Times since 1996, examines four decades of the newspaper’s history, from the final years of Arthur “Punch” Sulzberger’s reign as publisher to the election of Donald Trump in November 2016.

Dynamic dialogue can turn an otherwise ordinary novel into a delightful read, but dull, uninspired dialogue will cause readers to lose interest and try something else. In this book, bestselling author William Bernhardt, renowned for his handling of dialogue, explains his techniques for making characters come to life through their words. He explains the importance of matching character and dialogue, of avoiding dialogue that's “on-the-nose,” and the value of using dialogue to suggest what no one will say aloud.

Practical and instructive, Egri provides a framework for writers to analyze and enhance their work. Numerous examples from classical and contemporary literature illustrate his principles, making the book a theoretical guide and hands-on manual for improving storytelling skills. "The Art of Dramatic Writing" has left a lasting impact, influencing generations of writers and remaining a staple in creative writing programs. Its enduring relevance lies in its timeless principles, applicable across genres and mediums.

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.

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.

Over a decade ago, when Writing Down the Bones first appeared, Natalie Goldberg started a revolution in the way we practice writing. Now, for the first time, Goldberg reads her classic work, while offering new commentary about the creative, spiritual, and practical dimensions of writing. This collector's edition also includes an exclusive interview with the author.

We have reached a state of utter absurdity, where journalism schools teach students that their own personal truth or chosen narratives matter more than reality. In Slanted, Attkisson digs into the language of propagandists, the persistence of false media narratives, the driving forces behind today's dangerous blend of facts and opinion, the abandonment of journalism ethics, and the new, Orwellian definition of what it means to report the news.

Compelling characters are what keeps readers turning pages and buying books—from fantasies to mysteries to the great literary novel. But how to do you create characters that feel three-dimensional and real on the page? Counsellor and author Eileen Cook shares common psychological techniques to help you build your characters and take your story to the next level. This book covers understanding your character's backstory and how it impacts their choices in your book by doing a structured counselling interview, personality structure, and the Stages of Change.

Whether you're a first-time grant writer or a veteran fundraiser, putting together a grant proposal is a daunting task. Thankfully, this up-to-date insider's guide shows you step-by-step how to deal with application forms, give prospective funding sources the specifics they're looking for, and get the money you need.

A definitive collection of wisdom on every style of writing and a celebration of the transformative power of the written word from one of the most influential writers and thinkers of the modern age, C. S. Lewis, the beloved author of the Chronicles of Narnia series, Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and other revered classics.

Countless would-be readers and listeners of Finnegans Wake - James Joyce's 1939 masterwork, on which he labored for a third of his life - have given up after a few pages and "dismissed the book as a perverse triumph of the unintelligible." In 1944, a young professor of mythology and literature named Joseph Campbell, working with novelist and poet Henry Morton Robinson, wrote the first guide to understanding the fascinating world of Finnegans Wake.

Un auteur de romans doit être une machine à produire des idées. Pas le choix ! Mais d'où viennent les bonnes idées et comment les rendre meilleures pour écrire un roman à succès ? Vous avez une idée de roman ? OK, mais est-ce qu'une idée ça suffit pour écrire un roman de 25 000, 50 000 ou 120 000 mots ? Non ! Il en faut des dizaines et des dizaines. Et même si vous avez une bonne idée pour tout votre roman, vous pouvez encore l'améliorer pour en faire une grande idée, qui portera toute votre écriture.

As the author of 24 novels, Elizabeth George is one of the most successful - and prolific - novelists today. In Mastering the Process, George offers listeners a master class in the art and science of crafting a novel. This is a subject she knows well, having taught creative writing both nationally and internationally for over 30 years. Drawing from her personal photos, early notes, character analyses, and rough drafts, George shows us every stage of how she wrote her novel Careless in Red.

On the morning of July 3, 1994, a misreported forest fire on Storm King Mountain in Colorado became one of the greatest tragedies in the annals of firefighting. In this dramatic reconstruction of the disaster and its aftermath, John N. MacLean tells the heroic and cautionary story of nature at its most unforgiving.

Our unique audioteach method features the voice of a real tutor, Chris Sykes. He will guide you through your course with over seven hours of audio material, giving you tips and advice based on his many years of teaching and writing experience and helping you to avoid common mistakes and pitfalls. This course takes you from complete beginner or committed amateur to the point where you've completed, edited and redrafted your work and are ready for publication.

Dorothea Brande's Becoming a Writer remains evergreen decades after it was first written. Brande believed passionately that although people have varying amounts of talent, anyone can write. She also insists that writing can be both taught and learned. This is Dorothea Brande's legacy to all those who have ever wanted to express their ideas in written form. A sound, practical, inspirational, and charming approach to writing, it fulfills on finding the writer's magic.

In this modern classic, Annette Simmons reminds us that the oldest tool of influence is also the most powerful. Fully revised and updated to account for new technology and social media, along with two new chapters on the role of stories in the development of civilization and how to adjust your story to your specific goal, Simmons showcases over 100 examples of effective storytelling drawn from the front lines of business and government, as well as myths, fables, and parables from around the world.

F--k the F--kity F--kin' F--ker. Fans of Katherine Dunn won't be surprised that this was her father's favorite sentence, or that, as a young girl, she heard it as a kind of profane poem, a secret song. For many of us, the language of Geek Love carries a similar staying power, born of Dunn's agile use of language and her strange, beautiful diction. And as a true exegete of the expletive, she remained undividedly devoted to obscenity - both as scholar and practitioner.