Books For Writers

Sep 20, 2010
Toby Welch

Books! - Dr. Marcus Gossler

Every writer ought to have a shelf filled with awesome books about the craft of writing. Here are some suggestions to get you started.

I just read an awesome book - How I Write: The Secret Lives of Authors. With contributions from sixty writers that chronicle how they write and what inspires them, this book makes you think about your own writing life. This book is one of dozens that writers would benefit from having on their shelves. Consider picking up some of these.

Great Books for Writers and Aspiring Writers

The Write Track: How to Succeed as a Freelance Writer in Canada by Betty Jane Wylie - Geared for us Canucks, this book covers the writing lifestyle basics. Wylie starts by showing us what is needed to succeed as a freelance writer, mainly things within ourselves. She continues with fundamentals such as generating ideas, research, interviews, how to market, copyrights, plagiarism, and dealing with others in the industry.
The Canadian Writer’s Market by Sandra B. Tooze – This is an essential book for anyone who plans to submit work to consumer magazines, literary and scholarly publications, trade magazines, newspapers, book publishers, or literary agents in Canada. It summarizes each of the markets to help you decide where to submit your work. The book also covers writing competitions, writers’ organizations, writer support programs, and other resources. Make sure you pick up the latest version; as of print time, the 18th edition.
Reading Like a Writer: A Guide For People Who Love Books and For Those Who Want to Write Them by Francine Prose – Prose shows us how to become better writers by learning from the masters – Kafka, Austen, Dickens, Chekhov, Eliot, Le Carre, Joyce, and Flaubert, among others.
You Can Write for Magazines by Greg Daugherty – This little book contains a lot of information. For anyone who wants their work to appear in consumer magazines, read this first. It covers everything from query letters to creating attention-grabbing leads to writing reviews. It also touches on basics such as dealing with rejection, finding time to write, and a glossary of writer terms.
The Canadian Writer’s Handbook (Fifth Edition) by William E. Messenger... (et al.) – This book will tidy anyone’s writing. It will help you polish your diction, spelling, and punctuation. It is dry reading but if you complete the exercises, your writing will improve.
Bulletproof Book Proposals by Pam Brodowsky and Eric Neuhaus – If you are the type of person who learns by example, this book is for you. It contains 12 book proposals and shows us why they were accepted and includes commentary from the proposal’s authors, editors, and agents. A section of the book is devoted to helping you polish your book proposal and explains how to package it.
How to Write What You Love and Make a Living at It by Dennis E. Hensley – For anyone who has ever wanted to make writing their day job, this is a must-read. Hensley discusses how to deal with the financial aspects of being a writer, what topics will bring in money, and using marketing and reselling for long-term payoffs.
Writing Feature Articles (Fourth Edition) by Brendan Hennessy – Anyone who wants to master article writing for any medium needs a copy of this book.
The Artful Edit: On the Practice of Editing Yourself by Susan Bell – This nifty little book will help you transition from being a writer to an editor when it is time to revise your work.
Write Faster, Write Better: Time-Saving Techniques For Writing Great Fiction and Nonfiction by David A. Fryxell – This book shows you how to get more writing done while simultaneously improving the quality of your work. It goes deeper than most books into topics like writer’s block, research, interviewing, organization, and the actual writing of a project.
Too Lazy to Work, Too Nervous to Steal: How to Have a Great Life as a Freelance Writer by John Clausen – With Clausen as your personal cheerleader, you have no option but to succeed at this crazy calling - writing. Inspiration and direction are abundant in this must-read.
A Writer’s Coach: An Editor’s Guide to Words That Work by Jack Hart. This book reads like a textbook but is so crammed with useful information it’s hard to put down. This book made me scrutinize my writing and I will never use a dangling prepositional phrase again. Knock on wood.

More to Include on Your Bookshelf

The Freelance Writer’s Bible: Your Guide to a Profitable Writing Career Within One Year by David Trottier
The New Kings of Nonfiction by Ira Glass
The Longman Guide to Intermediate and Advanced Fiction Writing by Sarah Stone
How to Publish Your Children’s Book: A Complete Guide to Making the Right Publisher Say Yes by Liza N. Burby
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss
100 Ways to Improve Your Writing by Gary Provost
On Writing by Stephen King
Writer's Digest Handbook of Magazine Article Writing by Michelle Ruberg
You Can Write a Column by Monica McCabe Cardoza
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Creative Writing by Laurie E. Rozakis
Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul: Stories to Open the Heart and Rekindle the Spirit of Writers by Jack Canfield
The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art by Joyce Carol Oates
How I Write: Secrets of a Bestselling Author by Janet Evanovich
Lifelines: How Personal Writing Can Save Your Life by Christina Baldwin
Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer by Peter Turchi
The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life by Julia Cameron