Readings for Creative Writing 3130

Submitted by rosslaird on Mon, 2010-01-04 17:05
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First of all, becoming a writer is mainly a matter of cultivating a writer’s temperament. (Dorothea Brande)

Writers learn their art in large part by reading the works of others; absorbing it, distilling it, rendering it down until it coalesces into a new and personal style. A writer writes, yes, but first a writer reads.

Choose three books from the list: one within the genre of your own work, one in an unfamiliar genre or subject, and one for enjoyment. In other words, choose for resonance, craft, and fun.

So, to sum up:

  • Read three books.
  • Read everything posted on this course site.
  • Read some more.
  • Keep reading.
  • Don’t stop reading.
  • Remember to read.

Books

Broadkey, Harold.
This Wild Darkness: The Story of My Death.
Owl Books, 1997. ISBN: 0805055118.

Butala, Sharon.
Wild Stone Heart.
HarperFestival, 2000. ISBN: 000255397X.

Calvo, César.
The Three Halves of Ino Moxo.
Translated by Kenneth Symington.
Inner Traditions, 1995. ISBN: 0892815191.
(Those fluent in Spanish may prefer to read Las tres mitades de Ino Moxo, Iquitos, Peru. Proceso Editores, 1981.)

Hedges, Chris.
War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning.
Anchor, 2003. ISBN: 1400034639.

Hyde, Lewis.
Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, & Art.
North Point Press, 1999. ISBN: 0865475369.

Jerome, John.
Stone Work: Reflections on Serious Play and Other Aspects of Country Life.
UP of New England. ISBN: 0874517621.
Krakauer, John.

Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster.
Anchor, 1999. ISBN: 0385494785.

Kingston, Maxine Hong.
The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts.
Vintage, 1989. ISBN: 0072435194.

Kwan, Michael David.
Things that Must Not be Forgotten: A Childhood in Wartime China.
Soho Press ISBN: 1569472823

Langewiesche, William.
American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center.
North Point Press, 2002. ISBN: 0865475822. (Also see Inside the Sky.)

Lopate, Phillip.
The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present.
Anchor, 1997. ISBN: 038542339X.

Macfarlane, David.
The Danger Tree: Memory, War and the Search for a Family’s Past.
Walker, 2001. ISBN: 0802776167.

Merwin, W.S.
The Mays of Ventadorn.
National Geographic Directions, 2002. ISBN: 0792265386.

Ondaatje, Michael.
Running in the Family.
Vintage, 1993. ISBN: 0679746692.

Pirsig, Robert.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
HarperTorch, 2006 (reprint). ISBN: 0060589469.

Saint-Exupéry, A.
Wind, Sand and Stars.
Harvest, 2002. ISBN: 0156027496.

Sanders, Scott Russell.
Writing from the Center.
Indiana UP, 1997. ISBN: 0253211433.

Terpstra, John.
The Boys: Or, Waiting for the Electrician’s Daughter.
Gaspereau Press, 2005. ISBN: 1554470110.

Essays

(Read as many of these as you can.)

William Langewiesche
Fear and Lodging in Baghdad

Carlos Fuentes
How I Started to Write

Wendell Berry
An Entrance to the Woods

G.K. Chesterton
A Piece of Chalk

E.B. White
Once More to the Lake

Virginia Woolf
Street Haunting

Lu Hsun
This Too is Life

Walter Benjamin
Unpacking my Library

Jorge Luis Borges
 Blindness

Roland Barthes
Leaving the Movie Theater

Natalia Ginzburg
He and I

Wole Soyinka
Why do I Fast?

Henry David Thoreau
 Walking

Robert Benchley
My Face

Adrienne Rich
Split at the Root

Joan Didion
In Bed

Annie Dillard
 Seeing

Richard Selzer
The Knife

Scott Russell Sanders
Under the Influence

Richard Rodriguez
Late Victorians

Stanton Michaels
How to Write a Personal Essay

Ralph Ellison
On Being the Target of Discrimination

Philip Lopate
The Dead Father: A Remembrance of Donald Barthelme

Vivian Gornick
At the University: Little Murders of the Soul

Jane Shapiro
This is What You Need for a Happy Life

Joy Williams
Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp

Also, feel free to look at the readings pages for the Mythological Narratives class and the Interdisciplinary Expressive Arts class, for even more ideas and directions:

You may choose items from either of the above lists.