The Work of Life Writing

The Work of Life Writing PDF Author: G. Thomas Couser
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000367320
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
Life writing, in its various forms, does work that other forms of expression do not; it bears on the world in a way distinct from imaginative genres like fiction, drama, and poetry; it acts in and on history in significant ways. Memoirs of illness and disability often seek to depathologize the conditions that they recount. Memoirs of parents by their children extend or alter relations forged initially face to face in the home. At a time when memoir and other forms of life writing are being produced and consumed in unprecedented numbers, this book reminds readers that memoir is not mainly a "literary" genre or mere entertainment. Similarly, letters are not merely epiphenomena of our "real lives." Correspondence does not just serve to communicate; it enacts and sustains human relationships. Memoir matters, and there’s life in letters. All life writing arises of our daily lives and has distinctive impacts on them and the culture in which we live.

The Work of Life Writing

The Work of Life Writing PDF Author: G. Thomas Couser
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000367320
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 206

Get Book Here

Book Description
Life writing, in its various forms, does work that other forms of expression do not; it bears on the world in a way distinct from imaginative genres like fiction, drama, and poetry; it acts in and on history in significant ways. Memoirs of illness and disability often seek to depathologize the conditions that they recount. Memoirs of parents by their children extend or alter relations forged initially face to face in the home. At a time when memoir and other forms of life writing are being produced and consumed in unprecedented numbers, this book reminds readers that memoir is not mainly a "literary" genre or mere entertainment. Similarly, letters are not merely epiphenomena of our "real lives." Correspondence does not just serve to communicate; it enacts and sustains human relationships. Memoir matters, and there’s life in letters. All life writing arises of our daily lives and has distinctive impacts on them and the culture in which we live.

The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture PDF Author: Randy Pausch
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780340978504
Category : Cancer
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The author, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, explores his life, the lessons that he has learned, how he has worked to achieve his childhood dreams, and the effect of his diagnosis on him and his family.

The Truth about Stories

The Truth about Stories PDF Author: Thomas King
Publisher: House of Anansi
ISBN: 0887846963
Category : American literature
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
Winner of the 2003 Trillium Book Award "Stories are wondrous things," award-winning author and scholar Thomas King declares in his 2003 CBC Massey Lectures. "And they are dangerous." Beginning with a traditional Native oral story, King weaves his way through literature and history, religion and politics, popular culture and social protest, gracefully elucidating North America's relationship with its Native peoples. Native culture has deep ties to storytelling, and yet no other North American culture has been the subject of more erroneous stories. The Indian of fact, as King says, bears little resemblance to the literary Indian, the dying Indian, the construct so powerfully and often destructively projected by White North America. With keen perception and wit, King illustrates that stories are the key to, and only hope for, human understanding. He compels us to listen well.

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain PDF Author: George Saunders
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1984856049
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the Booker Prize–winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo and Tenth of December comes a literary master class on what makes great stories work and what they can tell us about ourselves—and our world today. LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/DIAMONSTEIN-SPIELVOGEL AWARD • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, NPR, Time, San Francisco Chronicle, Esquire, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Town & Country, The Rumpus, Electric Lit, Thrillist, BookPage • “[A] worship song to writers and readers.”—Oprah Daily For the last twenty years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times. In his introduction, Saunders writes, “We’re going to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world, made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesn’t fully endorse but that these writers accepted implicitly as the aim of art—namely, to ask the big questions, questions like, How are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyway, and how might we recognize it?” He approaches the stories technically yet accessibly, and through them explains how narrative functions; why we stay immersed in a story and why we resist it; and the bedrock virtues a writer must foster. The process of writing, Saunders reminds us, is a technical craft, but also a way of training oneself to see the world with new openness and curiosity. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is a deep exploration not just of how great writing works but of how the mind itself works while reading, and of how the reading and writing of stories make genuine connection possible.

Alcatraz Vs. the Evil Librarians

Alcatraz Vs. the Evil Librarians PDF Author: Brandon Sanderson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780439925501
Category : Clumsiness
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
On his thirteenth birthday, foster child Alcatraz Smedry receives a bag of sand which is immediately stolen by the evil Librarians who are trying to take over the world, and Alcatraz is introduced to his grandfather and his own special talent, and told that he must use it to save civilization.

Creative writing: the quick matrix

Creative writing: the quick matrix PDF Author: Susan Lee Kerr
Publisher: eBook Partnership
ISBN: 0955137012
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 91

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Book Description
Creative Writing: the Quick Matrix is for writers teaching creative writing to adults. Can be adapted by any teacher for many levels of creative writing, and by writers' circles and individual writers.The 86 exercises and 18 mini-lectures selected from the original paperback are arranged in five sections in easy to use ebook format. Nurture and Running the Course include planning, pacing, supporting the group (and the tutor) plus guidelines for non-destructive workshopping. Stimulus features over 30 exercises and methods to light the creative spark plus five zero-preparation exercises for the tutor in need. Craft covers another 34 exercises for honing skills, including story-starters, character, p.o.v., dialogue, scene, plot, richer writing. Process offers tools to help break through procrastination and live the writing life.PRAISE FOR the original paperback CREATIVE WRITING: THE MATRIX, Exercises & Ideas for Creative Writing Teachers.

Why I Write

Why I Write PDF Author: George Orwell
Publisher: Renard Press Ltd
ISBN: 1913724263
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 15

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Book Description
George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Why I Write, the first in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell describes his journey to becoming a writer, and his movement from writing poems to short stories to the essays, fiction and non-fiction we remember him for. He also discusses what he sees as the ‘four great motives for writing’ – ‘sheer egoism’, ‘aesthetic enthusiasm’, ‘historical impulse’ and ‘political purpose’ – and considers the importance of keeping these in balance. Why I Write is a unique opportunity to look into Orwell’s mind, and it grants the reader an entirely different vantage point from which to consider the rest of the great writer’s oeuvre. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times

The Two Cultures

The Two Cultures PDF Author: C. P. Snow
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107606144
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
The importance of science and technology and future of education and research are just some of the subjects discussed here.

Signifying Bodies

Signifying Bodies PDF Author: G. Thomas Couser
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472050699
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
Sheds new light on the memoir boom by asking: Is the genre basically about disability?

Learning How to Learn

Learning How to Learn PDF Author: Barbara Oakley, PhD
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 052550446X
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
A surprisingly simple way for students to master any subject--based on one of the world's most popular online courses and the bestselling book A Mind for Numbers A Mind for Numbers and its wildly popular online companion course "Learning How to Learn" have empowered more than two million learners of all ages from around the world to master subjects that they once struggled with. Fans often wish they'd discovered these learning strategies earlier and ask how they can help their kids master these skills as well. Now in this new book for kids and teens, the authors reveal how to make the most of time spent studying. We all have the tools to learn what might not seem to come naturally to us at first--the secret is to understand how the brain works so we can unlock its power. This book explains: Why sometimes letting your mind wander is an important part of the learning process How to avoid "rut think" in order to think outside the box Why having a poor memory can be a good thing The value of metaphors in developing understanding A simple, yet powerful, way to stop procrastinating Filled with illustrations, application questions, and exercises, this book makes learning easy and fun.