Shoptalk

This book is reassuring, inspirational, interesting, and humorous to read.

—Language Arts

Both practicing and would-be writers are endlessly fascinated by what other writers have to say about the demands of their craft and their own methods of writing. In Shoptalk, Pulitzer Prize-winner Donald Murray has collected quotations from over 450 classic and contemporary writers that reveal the myriad stages writers pass through to completion of a work. But this is more than a book of quotations; Murray has organized the writers' testimony into sixteen thematic categories and provided introductory essays that offer his own point of view and experiences to give direction and framework to the collection.

Contents:
1. Why Write 2. The Writer's World 3. Out of Silence, Words 4. Write for Yourself, Then Others 5. The Writing Habit 6. Waiting for Writing 7. Being Found by a Subject 8. Planning for Surprise 9. The Beginning Line 10. The Voice from the Text 11. Riding the Flow 12. Recognizing Form 13. At Play with Language 14. The Closing Line 15. The Pleasures of Revision 16. The Feel of Writing

“Among the many books on the shelves behind my desk is a worn copy of Shoptalk by the master writing teacher Donald Murray. I discovered the book many years ago when I was working for the Teachers College Writing Project, and like other books by Donald Murray, Shoptalk became a kind of gospel, offering guidance, inspiration, and a vision to those of us who wanted to ground our writing instruction in the work that real writers do.”

?Vicki Vinton, from her blog, To Make a Prairie