If You Want to Write
A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit
By Brenda Ueland
(Graywolf Press, Paperback, 9781555972608, 179pp.)
Publication Date: March 1997
Other Editions of This Title: Google eBook, Audio Cassette, Paperback, Paperback, Hardcover, Paperback, Paperback
Categories: Composition & Creative Writing - General
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In her 93 remarkable years, veteran freelance writer, memoirist, and writing teacher Brenda Ueland published some six million words. She once said there were two simple rules that she followed absolutely: to tell the truth, and not do anything she didn't want to do. Such integrity both distinguishes and defines If You Want to Write, her bestselling classic that first appeared in the late 1930s and has inspired thousands to find their own creative center. As Carl Sandburg once remarked, Ueland's primer is "the best book ever written on how to write."
Brenda Ueland was born in Minneapolis in 1891. She published three books, including Me (an autobiography) and Strength to Your Sword Arm: Selected Writings, as well as several articles and short stories. A widely acclaimed teacher of writing for many years, Ueland was knighted by the King of Norway and set an international swimming record (for over-80-year-olds). She died in 1985.
"It's a perfect book for both beginning and advanced writing students. It's wonderfully inspirational and can be coupled with just about any teaching technique."—Erin Cressida Wilson, Duke University
"The finest book written on the art and spirit of writing."—Shann Ferch, Gonzaga University (Spokane, WA)
"I have consistently used If You Want to Write for eight years now in English 241, and the students have loved it every semester."—Mel Livatino, Truman College (Chicago, IL)
"If You Want to Write does a superb job of reassuring student writers whose schooling has often robbed them of any confidence in their own voices. Nothing else I know does a better job of explaining to first-year college students the necessity of passion in the writer."—Shelby Grantham, Dartmouth College
"I was with [Ueland] right up to the end and wanted to shout, 'Amen.'"—Andrei Codrescu, poet, author, and National Public Radio commentator
"I only have to read a few sentences and I am infected with the desire to follow her."—Women's Review of Books
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