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On Becoming a Novelist
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On Becoming a Novelist Paperback - 1999

by John Gardner


From the publisher

On Becoming a Novelist contains the wisdom accumulated during John Gardner's distinguished twenty-year career as a fiction writer and creative writing teacher. With elegance, humor, and sophistication, Gardner describes the life of a working novelist; warns what needs to be guarded against, both from within the writer and from without; and predicts what the writer can reasonably expect and what, in general, he or she cannot. For a certain kind of person, Gardner writes, nothing is more joyful or satisfying than the life of a novelist. But no other vocation, he is quick to add, is so fraught with professional and spiritual difficulties. Whether discussing the supposed value of writer's workshops, explaining the role of the novelist's agent and editor, or railing against the seductive fruits of literary elitism, On Becoming a Novelist is an indispensable, life-affirming handbook for anyone authentically called to the profession. A miraculously detailed account of the creative process.--Anne Tyler, Baltimore Sun

First line

Nearly every beginning writer sooner or later asks (or wishes he dared ask) his creative writing teacher, or someone else he thinks might know, whether or not he really has what it takes to be a writer.

Details

  • Title On Becoming a Novelist
  • Author John Gardner
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition Reprint
  • Pages 172
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher W. W. Norton & Company, Scranton, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
  • Date 1999-10-17
  • ISBN 9780393320039 / 0393320030
  • Weight 0.37 lbs (0.17 kg)
  • Dimensions 8.26 x 5.6 x 0.45 in (20.98 x 14.22 x 1.14 cm)
  • Library of Congress subjects Fiction - Authorship - Vocational guidance
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 82048662
  • Dewey Decimal Code 808.302

Media reviews

Citations

  • New York Times, 11/14/1999, Page 38
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On Becoming a Novelist
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On Becoming a Novelist
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