Books by Carol Bly: Beyond the Writers' Workshop: New Ways to Write Creative Nonfiction

Beyond the Writers' Workshop: New Ways to Write Creative Nonfiction

This is a book for writers of essays, memoirs, and other nonfiction--and with several chapters on teaching writing in elementary school, middle- and high-school, MFA programs, and in short writing retreats and summer courses. Its appendix carries 15 writing exercises with suggestions on how and with whom to use them. Bly is strongly opposed to "workshopping manuscripts" --she regards "peer reviewal,' for all writers, but especially for young people, to be psychologically limited and often damaging. This book offers hope to both writers and teachers who haven't liked everything they've seen in the learning and teaching of writing literature.

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Jacket Comments

"In this bracing critique of the workshop culture Carol Bly reminds serious writers to be passionate, be brave, and tell the truth."

--Carol Conroy, Teachers and Writers Collaborative

"If you suspect that the making and reading of literature can deepen our lives, sharpen our vision, turn us away from evil and lead us toward truth, then enter these pages. Leave any humbug or cynicism at the door, however, and prepare yourself for some hard and exuberant thinking. Part ethical primer, part critique of junk culture, part owner's manual for the mind, Carol Bly's marvelous book shakes up our preconceptions about the art of writing."

--Scott Russell Sanders, author of Hunting for Hope

"Bly is both a great writer and a great teacher of writing… brilliant, passionate, and outspoken. This book is filled with useful ideas for beginners and for old times like me."

--Mary Pipher, author of Reviving Ophelia