The Spirit of Writing: Classic and Contemporary Essays Celebrating the Writing Life

Therapist, writer and creativity expert Mark Waldman (Love Games) offers The Spirit of Writing: Classic and Contemporary Essays Celebrating the Writing Life, including five dozen pieces by luminaries like Joseph Conrad, Erica Jong, Sylvia Plath, Henry Miller and Octavio Paz. In ""Man Eats Car,"" Natalie Goldberg (Writing Down the Bones) declares, ""Writing is everything, unconditional.... If you think big enough to let people eat cars, you will be able to see that ants are elephants and men are women."" Pierre Joris (Poasis) poeticizes the ""interface between language and the world"": ""it becomes clear that this letter fell off on its own accord somehow & that it is in the gap between mother-tongue/other-tongue that I am written. This gap, this emptiness, is liable to take my breath away."" This anthology will provide writers of all stripes with guidance and inspiration for their psyche and their craft. (Aug. 27)