A Guide To Creative Writing And The Imagination

Teaching creative writing for the multicultural, global, and digital generation, this volume offers a fresh approach for enhancing core writing skills in the major forms of Poetry, Fiction, Nonfiction, and Drama. A Guide to Creative Writing and the Imagination aims to provide students with organic, active learning through imitation and examples which not only emphasize writing and reading but look to other art forms for inspiration. This volume’s key features include: • Strengthening key underlying capabilities of what we mean by imagination: physical and mental alertness, clarity of perception, listening skills, attention to detail, sustained concentration, lateral thinking, and enhanced memory. • Taking direction from other art forms such as African American musical improvisation, Brancusi’s sculptural idea of “finding form,” key ideas from drawing such as foreground, background, and negative space—and some of the great lessons learned from National Geographic photography. • Incorporating techniques drawn from unusual sources such as advertising, military intelligence, ESL, working with the blind, stage magic, and oral traditions of remote indigenous cultures in Oceania and Africa. The work is intended for a global English market as a core or supplementary text at the undergraduate level and as a supporting frame at the M.F.A. level.

Write: A 30-day Guide to Creative Writing is designed for aspiring fiction writers wanting to kick-start the imagination. Packed with activities and daily tasks, it offers guidance through the basic stages of writing creatively: inventing plot and dialogue, crafting characters, dealing with setting, pace and structure, and even overcoming writer's block. Original, stimulating, and often funny, this is the ideal guide both for the independent writer, and for tutors and workshop leaders. Sarah Quigley is an experienced novelist, poet, columnist, and short-story writer. With this book she shares some of the 'tricks of the trade', demystifying the art of writing and offering insights into the creative process.

A side-splitting and informative guide to creative writing by author/illustrator comedic duo Andy and Olaf, jam-packed with lashings of monster-inspired fun. Unleash your creative monster and write stories to inspire, amaze and awe your friends. With top tips on getting your story started, learn essential skills for storytellers in this brilliant guide to writing. Give your descriptions claws, add a little bite to your writing and feed your monster inspiration with over 50 writing prompts and exercises.

Now expanded: The definitive visual guide to writing science fiction and fantasy—with exercises, diagrams, essays by superstar authors, and more. From the New York Times-bestselling, Nebula Award-winning author, Wonderbook has become the definitive guide to writing science fiction and fantasy by offering an accessible, example-rich approach that emphasizes the importance of playfulness as well as pragmatism. It also embraces the visual nature of genre culture and employs bold, full-color drawings, maps, renderings, and visualizations to stimulate creative thinking. On top of all that, it features sidebars and essays—most original to the book—from some of the biggest names working in the field today, among them George R. R. Martin, Lev Grossman, Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock, Charles Yu, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Karen Joy Fowler. For the fifth anniversary of the original publication, Jeff VanderMeer has added fifty more pages of diagrams, illustrations, and writing exercises, creating the ultimate volume of inspiring advice. “One book that every speculative fiction writer should read to learn about proper worldbuilding.” —Bustle “A treat . . . gorgeous to page through.” —Space.com

Growing out of recent pedagogical developments in creative writing studies and perceived barriers to teaching the subject in secondary education schools, this book creates conversations between secondary and post-secondary teachers aimed at introducing and improving creative writing instruction in teaching curricula for young people. Challenging assumptions and lore regarding the teaching of creative writing, this book examines new and engaging techniques for infusing creative writing into all types of language arts instruction, offering inclusive and pedagogically sound alternatives that consider the needs of a diverse range of students. With careful attention given to creative writing within current standards-based educational systems, Imaginative Teaching Through Creative Writing confronts and offers solutions to the perceived difficulty of teaching the subject in such environments. Divided into two sections, section one sees post-secondary instructors address pedagogical techniques and concerns such as workshop, revision, and assessment before section two explores hands-on activities and practical approaches to instruction. Focusing on an invaluable and underrepresented area of creative writing studies, this book begins a much-needed conversation about the future of creative writing instruction at all levels and the benefits of collaboration across the secondary/post-secondary divide.

The essential guide for Canadian writers seeking to have their work published today. How do you get your writing published in Canada? What are the industry standards for publishable work and how do you reach them? This lively, practical guide shows you how to think more creatively, cultivate a strong writing voice, and make your sentences powerful. It explains the elements of style and offers writing prompts to help you apply what you learn. It gives strategies for finding critique partners and beta readers and for getting useful feedback before you send your drafts to agents or editors. The chapters are packed with up-to-date information about the publishing industry, including how to find an agent, how to submit manuscripts to literary journals, how to query independent presses, and how to apply for writing grants. The Canadian Guide to Creative Writing & Publishing confidently leads you through the process of polishing your writing and finding an audience for your work.

"This book is a first-rate guide for writers who are looking for ways to improve their output. It focuses on: fiction writing and the world of genre fiction - science, romance, horror and crime ways of drawing on personal experience in order to write non-fiction articles on a wide variety of topics in a number of different styles and, writing for children which requires specialist skills that, once mastered, bring enormous satisfaction to both the writer and the reader. Crucially, there is also a chapter on presenting your work to a publisher and getting it into print"--Publisher's description.

"Growing out of recent pedagogical developments in creative writing studies and perceived barriers to teaching the subject in secondary education schools, this book creates conversations between secondary and post-secondary teachers aimed at introducing and improving creative writing instruction in teaching curricula for young people. Challenging assumptions and lore regarding the teaching of creative writing, this book examines new and engaging techniques for infusing creative writing into all types of language arts instruction, offering inclusive and pedagogically sound alternatives that consider the needs of a diverse range of students. With careful attention given to creative writing within current standards-based educational systems, Imaginative Teaching Through Creative Writing confronts and offers solutions to the perceived difficulty of teaching the subject in such environments. Divided into two sections, section one sees post-secondary instructors address pedagogical techniques and concerns such as workshop, revision, and assessment before section two explores hands-on activities and practical approaches to instruction. Focusing on an invaluable and underrepresented area of creative writing studies, this book begins a much-needed conversation about the future of creative writing instruction at all levels and the benefits of collaboration across the secondary/post-secondary divide."--