Angela Kelsey

Tell the Story

book 20 of 24 books in 28 days: tell it slant

Filed in Books, Writing :: February 28, 2010

Tell it Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonfiction, by Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola, is the kind of book one might buy, as I did, at the beginning of a nonfiction project.  It is a guidebook to the variety of material that falls under the heading “creative nonfiction” and a collection of questions and writing […]

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book 19 of 24 books in 28 days: the art of the personal essay

Filed in Books, Writing ::

Phillip Lopate’s The Art of the Personal Essay is another big book that has been untouched on a shelf until recently.    The class-syllabus-esque subtitle, “An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present,” made it easy for me to pass by it on my way to, say, The Liar’s Club.  This was an error in […]

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book 17 of 24 books in 28 days: the life of samuel johnson

Filed in Books, Writing ::

First, two confessions: if I were making my reading list today, I would not include James Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson.  I would include in its (pre-1900, evolution-of-the-genre) place, say, the work of St. Augustine, Anne Bradstreet, Benvenuto Cellini, Olaudah Equiano, Benjamin Franklin, Margery Kempe, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Mary Rowlandson, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, St. Teresa […]

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book 16 of 24 books in 28 days: i could tell you stories

Filed in Books, Writing ::

I've had Patricia Hampl's I Could Tell You Stories on my bookshelf for over a year.  I don't know why I haven't read it until now, but if you haven't read it either, please do, and as soon as possible.  Hampl sprinkles her clarifying tonic on memoir, memory, and writing process through essays on poetry […]

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