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So, You Want to Be a Writer?
Student Handout
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RITA DOVE
Rita Dove is Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia, the lyric poet of her generation, and the Poet Laureate of the United States. She was a high school honor student from Ohio who went on to graduate summa cum laude from college. Dove then earned a Fulbright Scholarship. She authored "Thomas and Beulah," a 44-poem collection evoking the lives of her grandparents. The book earned her the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. This "poet for the people" is the youngest and the first black American to serve as the nation's poet laureate.
JOHN GRISHAM
John Grisham is the best-selling novelist in America. His books have translated into 31 languages, with more than 60 million in print worldwide. The son of an itinerant construction worker, he spent his childhood traversing the South. Grisham was "an unremarkable student and avid jock" in high school who showed no early interest in writing but was inspired by the novels of John Steinbeck. He later graduated from the law school of Ole Miss and set up shop as a small town litigator. In 1984, he dropped by the courthouse and observed the trial of a 10-year-old girl testifying against a man who raped her and left her for dead. Grisham was overwhelmed by the emotion and human drama in the courtroom, and decided to write a novel based on that trial. He got to the office at 5 a.m. six days a week to find the time to work on his first book, "A Time to Kill." Grisham then received 28 rejections before he found a publisher. At age 36, he had his career as a novelist skyrocket with his second book, "The Firm," and then authored "The Pelican Brief, "The Chamber," and "The Client."
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How many times have you said to yourself, "I'd like to write" or "I wish I could be a writer?" How often have you thought about putting your ideas and feelings on paper and have them published and shared with others? And how many times have you met other writers, or read their work, and yearned to do what they do? This program is for you. The objective of this program is for students to meet five extraordinary authors and develop a better understanding of what it means to be an author.
Writing is and always will be a creative, intuitive, and sometimes mysterious process. We hope this program will help you reach your own writing goals, and make your dream of becoming a writer come true.
One of the best things about writing is that it doesn't require any fancy or expensive equipment. For centuries writers have gotten by with nothing more than pens and paper. Many authors today shun the word processor in favor of writing long-hand on legal pads.
One of the things on your mind may be, "Where do writers get their material?" Writers find good material everywhere: from their memories, experiences, observations, thoughts and feelings, and from reading, too.
The best way to write well is to write about what you care about, the things you love, like, hate, fear, avoid, and don't understand. The more you work with these, the more you'll move your readers.
You don't have to know how or why something is meaningful to you in order to use it in your writing. Good writing doesn't have to analyze or explain things. However, good writing does move and convince readers, by making them care about the same things you care about.
Two of the most common questions that beginning writers ask themselves are "Where do I begin?" and "How do I get started?" There are no rules and very often the message you hope to relay will guide you.
There are two essential ingredients in becoming a better writer.
The first is to practice. The more you write, the better and more confident a writer you're likely to become. The second is to read the work of writers you enjoy. This will give you specific, concrete examples of how good writing works. You will have a chance to see a variety of approaches and techniques in action.
Studying writing may not seem relevant to your future today, but could represent a stepping stone to a meaningful career. A knowledge of writing will help you decide what is most interesting to you. This is very important because most people spend one-half of their waking time on the job. Investigate the following careers related to writing. Find out what the person does on a daily basis, the educational and work experience required and where the work must be performed.
- Advertising Copy Writer
- Journalist
- Novelist
- Playwright
- Poet
- Script Writer
- Song Writer
- Technical Writer
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THOMAS McGUANE
Thomas McGuane is a novelist, scriptwriter, essayist, journalist, and "counterculture hero" from McLeod, Montana. At age 10, he was inspired to become a writer after collaborating with friends on a novel that was never finished because its juvenile authors got into a fist-fight over the description of a sunset. His father's compulsive working and drinking provided grist for a consistent McGuane theme: unresolved business between fathers and sons. He attended an exclusive boarding school but, at age 16, ran away to a Wyoming ranch. McGuane returned as an "avowed sociopath," rebellious and only interested in writing. He flunked out of the University of Michigan and finally enrolled at Michigan State and edited the college literary magazine. He then spent three years at the Yale School of Drama and earned a fellowship to Stanford. McGuane authored the critically acclaimed novels "The Bushwacked Piano" and "The Sporting Club," which featured themes of hip, ironic, and alienated young outsiders. He went on to author "Ninety-Two in the Shade," "Something to Be Desired," "An Outside Chance," and "Nothing But Blue Skies." This consummate literary stylist and "intellectual cowboy" continues to search for meaning in contemporary life and explores the state of American society and culture.
AGNES NIXON
Agnes Nixon is the premier storyteller of daytime television. A native of Nashville, she was a solitary child who cut out paper dolls and made up stories about them. Nixon was driven to achieve by her parents, but felt lonely and inadequate, which provided her with a writer's insight into the hidden emotions that so often shape people's destinies. In college, she won competitions for writing and directing the best play. After graduation, she was hired to write soap operas in Chicago and mastered the craft of interweaving plots and writing steamy dialogue. Nixon migrated to New York and became a free-lance writer for "Hallmark Hall of Fame." In 1968, she was recruited by ABC-TV and offered creative control of her own program. She created "One Life to Live" and developed "All My Children" with story lines that grow out of the shenanigans of rogues, scoundrels, temptresses, liars, busybodies, social climbers, and the lusty folks who populate Everytown, USA. The "Mother of All Soaps: has had a serial on the air five days a week, 52 weeks a year for over 30 years. Agnes Nixon was recently inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.
SUSAN SHEEHAN
Susan Sheehan is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Wellesley College. For the past 33 years, she has been a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. Sheehan is the author of "Is There No Place on Earth for Me?" a vivid portrait of Sylvia Frumkin, a paranoid schizophrenic, which chronicles Frumkin's frightening and horrible experiences in and out of mental institutions. The book earned Sheehan the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction. She recently authorized "Life For Me Ain't Been No Crystal Stair." The book charts a terrifying legacy of institutional abuse and neglect of foster children, shows the damage that has been inflicted on foster children, shows the damage that has been inflicted on three generations of one inner-city family, and paints a haunting portrait of children growing up without childhood.
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