Writers Books

Novels about Hitler lay themselves open to the charge of humanizing a monster. Yet when I finished Geli, I felt even more distaste for the man than when I had started.

I had thus far cauterized the evil that infested my history book by imagining an abstract, inhuman machine. S. Chesterfield gives flesh and blood to that lie by chillingly illustrating how a human intent on a master plan would stop nothing - not even in his private life - to achieve it.

This intimate portrayal of Hitler reminds us - lest we forget, especially in the age of Osama - of how men who were once considered ordinary can subsequently commit unspeakable evil.

This book, altough based upon fact, reeks of suspense. It tells the story, not often done, of Hitler's early years. Dealing with the troubles he had setting up the mechanism which would make him, for a short time, dictator and conqueror of nearly half the world. It tells the true story of Angela, "Geli" for short -- Hitler's half-niece -- and her suicide, or was it a covered up murder? And why? It covers such interesting character bits as where did the ogre, Hitler, spend his Christmas Eves. A clever device is the fictional character, from World War One, Sergeant Strobel, who makes appearances from time to time as Hitler's debating conscience, and in the end deserts him as his character deteriorates. Included, also, is the true story of Hitler's vengeance, shortly after his election, upon those whom he considered enemies, a story of horror and mass execution. And, remember Hitler was elected by the German people. (Hitler was an Austrian citizen until a minor political appointment gave him German citizenship long after his joining the Nazi party.) There are excellent character delineations of Hitler's mob. The book features a unique ending to Hitler's life never before discussed, but of highly paractical circumstance.

Hitler is universally viewed as a monster, and the evidence of his evil has been both well documented and analyzed. The majority of this evidence largely involves his acts of cruelty and brutality against those with whom he had no relationship. In this excellent book the author adds another aspect of Hitler's persona, namely, what he was capable of doing to those he supposedly cared for. By presenting this more personal aspect of Hitler's inhumanity, the author adds a new, fresh and disturbing dimension to our understanding of Hitler.

I could not put this book down. Mr. Chesterfield has taken an old topic and revitalized it. Hitler's character is abhorently fascinating and just when you think you have read enough to understand the person along comes a new perspective worthy of further exploration. This book makes for a great read and even better dinner conversation. Bravo!

Wendy Lesser asked fifteen modern writers to reflect on their formative experiences with language and culture, and her Genius Of Language is the result: a survey of how writers alienated from their mother tongue embraced English and faced exile from both their culture and their own language. Essays by Amy Tan, Louis Begley and others provide important keys to understanding the process of adapting to another language and all its cultural implications.

This book of short essays assembled by Wendy Lesser is well worth the time and attention of anyone who enjoys language and the craft of writing. It provides the insights of serious authors as each adapted to the English language after being first subject to another tongue. As a bonus, the book is worthwhile in that it gives the reader a quick appreciation of the varied writing styles of fifteen talented authors, in case the reader would like to track down and explore any of their other independent works.

As someone with no ear at all for foreign languages, I find it amazing that these people become writers and then choose to write in what to them is a foreign language. Even more, they write it so much better than the rest of us.

They also reflect on how their bi-lingualism makes their English better. It seems that the effort of learning the second language gives them somewhat of a drive to find ways to express themselves in English what might be an easy thing to express in their own tongue. As a result, they learn ways to use English that stretch the language to its limit.

To have gotten fifteen writers of the caliber contributing essays to this book has to be considered a major coup on Wendy Lesser's part. This book provides an insight to language that is astounding.

If you are at all interested in language, language-acquisition, and how language (multi-linguilism) and life/identity intertwine, you'll love curling up with this book. There are 15 essays, arranged by the non-English (mother-tongue) language of the writer. Each of the six writers I have read thus far have approached the subject in wholly different (and mostly fascinating) lights. Tan is mercilessly sharp and funny while asking how seriously we should take the "language-shapes-reality" theory and while illustrating the fallacies of Chinese language/culture stereotpyes. Ariel Dorfman brilliantly uses an unconventional essay structure to probe and deconstruct his conflicted journey through his bilinguilism (Spanish/English)with extraordinary intelligence and linguistic/psychological force and sensitivity. With such a variety of languages, writers, styles/experiences, what's not to love?

This is a well written small book that explains things. The puzzle unexplained is why Gertrude stayed in an unpleasantly nazi occupied France and paled around with an obnoxious nazi in order to get favors. Its clear that Alice ruled the roost and didn't want to lose Gertrude. The author debunks Gertrude's unbearable stream-of-conscious form of writing rightly putting it in the class of the emperor's new clothes.

Oh my goodness .. if you've been 'enamored' of Gertrude & Alice for years & years, or are just discovering them .. this is THE story of their lives together. Grab this book before it goes out of print again !!

I am not a scholar and I am not sure that I would have the patience to read Gertrude "dans le texte". Yet I have a dilettant interest in these women of the first half of this century who seemed to have had a strong influence on the Arts and Litterature (Stein/Toklas, Cones, Sitwells...). I picked up this book by chance off the bookselves of my friends -- Liz and Jeff -- a rainy day by the Delaware River. I not only finished it off but enjoyed it tremenduously. I found the writting interesting, detailled (what a treat to get so many details of that era) and refreshing by its ease of access. Do read this book -- I am now onto other Stein/Toklas books (most certainly Alice's recipes).

One of the best dual-bios of these two ladies (and I've read this book both in German and English.) This book makes both of them very real, moving them beyond the literary/lesbian icons that they've become in the last 60+ years. Read this in conjunction with James Mellow's CHARMED CIRCLE and you'll be hooked both on Gertrude and Alice and the artistic era between the two World Wars!

I loved this novel from the first page to the last. It has so many elements; love, action, hate, Indian lore, and mystery. The author did a great deal of research. Although a time-travel, each action seemed real and heart warming. Hope he writes many more.

Wow! This story of mystery, hope and love was engaging from the beginning to the end. A really great find. Original and well-written.

The Ghost of Little Fawn held me spellbound. Not only was it a classic western, but it also included mystery, drama, romance, time travel, and so much more. A very entertaining book and I am anxiously awaiting the author's next one! Bob Kody is a winner!

The Ghost of Little Fawn is exciting reading. The author must have done a great deal of research on several Indian tribes. The story covers several genres and is well put together. It is what I call a page turner. Buck Davis encounters, ghosts, and learns Indian lore while tracking down a serial killer. The ending is delightful. I hope Bob Kody writes more books.

Anthony Winkler is a really gifted author and he has a talent for clearly reproducing the essence of raw Jamaica, even if it is a Jamaica that existed before I was born. He also wrote "The Lunatic" which I need to find and re-read again as well. He is a white Jamaican who currently lives in Atlanta, GA.

This book "Going Home To Teach" recounts his experiences when he returned home to Jamaica to teach back in the 1970s. Those were tumultuous times for Jamaica, when Michael Manley was in power and socialism was the philosophy du jour. Many people left, while Winkler was coming back. The book has a lot of pathos, humour, and drama; but what really makes it impressive and relevant to me are the observations on Jamaican, American and English culture. Here are some samples. I don't necessarily agree with all his observations, but I think they are worth noting.

On being white in Jamaica, specifically referring to his American wife's experience:
"To be white in a black country with a long English colonial history is to be a pariah, an ambiguous entity. It is to be simultaneously respected and despised, to arouse suspicion and curiosity, to evoke defiance, rudeness, envy and condescension. It is to be separated from that inalienable birthright every white American enjoys in his own country; the expectation of being treated with indifference in a public place. When you are white in a black land like Jamaica, you are no longer merely a man, or a woman, or a child. For good or ill, you are also immediately transmogrified into a living symbol of a detested colonial past."

On Jamaican and American attitudes towards economic roles:
"The American nation is essentially a confederation of economic tribes known as businesses and corporations, each with its own totemic history, identity...when you work for an American corporation it defines you, moulds you...and eventually changes your values and perceptions...Americans are reared with the expectation that a large part of their personal identity will eventually be defined in adulthood by an economic role. One becomes what one does...Jamaicans DO their careers, their occupational pursuits; Americans BECOME them...This wedding of personality and occupation is a most peculiar trait for Jamaicans to comprehend mainly because they have inherited from their own cultural experience a deep-seated dislike for ready-made economic roles. Jamaicans revel in the expression of an idiosyncratic self, and reject any occupational role that brings with it blanket expectations of the self. Why this is so no doubt goes back to our experience with slavery when we waged and endless war of passive resistance against the slave master's desires and struggled hard to repudiate what he wanted us to become."

On "getting on bad"
"This expression has a peculiar meaning to the Jamaican, and no known equivalent in America. To `go on bad' is to employ the behaviour of the lower class in a sphere of life where it is outlandishly inappropriate. One cannot `go on bad' in a true democracy like America, but only in a society that separates people into classes by a strictly prescribed code of manners. Under the Englishman's colonial blueprint, the ragged brute in the streets is expected to rant and rave over grievances and raise his voice in profanity, but not the tuxedoed gentleman at a formal dinner. And should the gentleman so behave for whatever reason other than rare excusable drunkenness, he is said to have `gone on bad.' His sin is not so much bad behaviour as it is a degenerate hybridisation of manners-bringing the lower-class brute into the drawing room- and the penalty is social expulsion. He simply will never be invited back."
The unfortunate thing is that many times, getting on bad is the only way to get anything done! He notes this in the anecdote that follows this quote, which I won't replay here.

It's a great autobiographical novel told from a point of view that I haven't even considered too much; that of the person who is born in Jamaica and is just as Jamaican as I am, except that he is white. It is an accurate snapshot of Jamaica in the 1970s as well. Well, I assume that, since I wasn't born then :D At any rate, I highly recommend it. Also read the rest of his books: "The Lunatic" "The Painted Canoe" "The Great Yacht Race" and "The Duppy". I have read them all except for the last one, those I have read have been very good also.

If you live in the Caribbean you will be able to identify with all the occurrences. If you used to live in the Caribbean, this book will bring back all the memories. If you have no Caribbean connections, then you will be highly amused by the "peculiarites" of the natives as Mr. Winkler cleverly reveals the culture and personalities of the island

I was a schoolgirl in Jamaica, during the 70s, the period Mr. Winkler writes about and I can attest that all the things he says are true. The book is hilarious and poignant at the same time, capturing all the things that make Jamaica a difficult place to live in, yet an impossible one to stay away from. He captures the crazy drama of everyday life there, with humor and beauty and sadness. The scene in the patty shop when he asked by two people behind him in line to judge which is the blacker one, is one of the funniest things I've ever read.

Just seeing his name on the book spine was enough to make me pick up the book.

Over the years, Anthony C. Winkler's rollicking novels of Jamaican life have given me considerable pleasure and insight into Caribbean sensibility. He writes with a great affection for the island nation's people, reveling in their culture and contradictions, equally amused by and compassionate toward all the social strata. However, I'd been curious about the writer himself since first reading THE LUNATIC years ago, after a St. Kitts-born friend and mentor pressed the book into my hand with a smile, saying "You must read this!" The brief bio in his books mentioned he was a native Jamaican and scant else. Who was he? I wondered to myself about his background, his roots, his understanding of Jamaica.

GOING HOME TO TEACH answered my questions and delivered a lot more. At heart, it's Winkler's memoir of his mid-1970s stint, when Michael Manley's "democratic socialist" administration ruled, as an instructor at a government-sponsored rural teacher training school. His return is part altruism, part nostalgia: As the author of successful, widely used college textbooks, he's got tidy sums squirreled away in American banks, so he can afford to return home and work for a pittance. On the other hand, at the time he's thirty-something, divorced, and he's spent thirteen years away from home to study and teach in the U.S., whose society bewilders him.

The meat of the book, though, is both personal and general. Winkler is a raconteur, a griot--a natural born storyteller--and he regales you with stories about his family (particularly his eccentric grandparents and crazy aunts), his encounters with hidebound administrators and bureaucrats, striking students, madmen, and the impossibility of finding competent repairpersons. And then again, there are his observations on American society and culture, the contrasts with Jamaica, and the cultural idiosyncrasies that he attributes to the history of slavery and English colonial rule. GOING HOME TO TEACH is a dense stew of memorable people, incidents and conclusions, richly seasoned with rib-tickling anecdotes.

Indeed, what makes the book really work is Winkler's humor and humanity, his conversational tone, his equanimity whether describing the absurd or the nearly tragic. He's not shy about his foibles, his family's or his countrymen's, and completely droll even when revealing the unpleasant side of paradise. Be cautioned about reading this book in public: you risk indelicate stares for laughing out loud, as I did particularly as I was reading his account of "night life"--the panoply of insects and other critters--in the Jamaican countryside.

There's also the bittersweet. Winkler's ancestry is European and Middle Eastern--which adds up to "white"--but he's Jamaica-born and bred (patois is his "native tongue" much as any other Jamaican's), and that's the land he loves. It results in a certain "double consciousness," which I find ironically analogous to the lot of "Black Americans":

"To be white in a black country with a long English colonial history is to be a pariah, an ambiguous entity. It is to be simultaneously respected and despised, to arouse suspicion and curiosity, to evoke defiance, rudeness, envy, and condescension. It is to be separated from that inalienable birthright every white American enjoys in his country: the expectation of being treated with indifference in a public place....

"The hardest thing about growing up white in a black country is the nagging feeling of not belonging.... Jamaicans of all races who have lived abroad for any length of time also suffer it after returning home, but for the white Jamaican the feeling of not belonging is a cross he must bear even if he has never set foot out of his own country."

If you're already a fan of Winkler's writing, I believe you'll also love this book. If you're not already acquainted, this should be a fine introduction to the man and the land. A highly recommended, rewarding read.

This book is thoroughly enjoyable, with M. M. Kaye describing her idlyic days in India in a wonderfully interesting, humorous way, which makes this book a pleasure to read and a must own!

What a terrific book--nostalgic, romantic, funnny, poignant. I was utterly charmed once again by Ms. Kaye's writing. Her descriptions of visits to the Taj Mahal and spring in Kashmir are beautiful. I can't wait to read "Enchanted Evening."

Ms. Kaye has the most wonderful way of describing scenes, colors, and events of an era never to be seen again. Her family led a story-book life of adventure and she makes it look so easy to overcome the forces of nature that were part of living there with very few, if any, modern conveniences. It was a delicious read and I hope Ms. Kaye is busily at work on the next book of her travels in China! I am grateful for this journey back into a gentler, quieter time.

At long last, the sequel to Sun in the Morning -- and as always, M.M. Kaye's writing is evocative, sumptuous, and addictive. (The Far Pavilions is one of the two books I always travel with -- the other is Gone With the Wind -- because I can start reading anywhere and become totally immersed, no matter how many times I've read it.) No one is better at evoking that time-lost period before the Second World War; the details are not only fascinating but reveal to us moderns what the world once was like (which in British India in many cases seems rather closely to resemble E.F. Benson's town of Tilling...). Since I owe not only my interest in, but my several-hundred-volume library on, India to reading The Far Pavilions, I must admit a certain partiality here -- and a burning desire to read the sequel to Golden Afternoon.

The FICTION GALLERY comprises twenty-five short stories by past masters such as Anton Chekov, John Cheever, and Raymond Carver as well as by outstanding contemporary writers such as Jhumpa Lahiri, T.C. Boyle, and Hannah Tinti.

The book also includes interviews with the above three contemporary writers, adding another dimension to the readers' understanding of the fiction-writing craft. How? First, a summary of Jhumpa Lahiri's short story, and then an excerpt from her interiew.

Lahiri's "The Third and Final Continent" is a first-person story of an Indian immigrant who looks back at his first few weeks in America, thirty years ago. In the late 1960s, at age thirty-six, he arrives to work as a librarian at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, after having studied for four years in London (his second continent). Just before coming to America, he takes a trip to Calcutta to "attend" his arranged marriage, staying there only a week, barely getting acquainted with his bride. She has to await her visa for six weeks before she can join him in America. On arrival in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the narrator checks into the local YMCA and later rents a room in the home of a 103-year-old widow, Mrs. Croft, who lives by herself. She is a stay-at-home eccentric mother of a 68-year-old daughter, who thinks it improper that her visiting daughter wears a dress high above her ankle. "For your information, Mother, it's 1969. What would you do if you actually left the house one day and saw a girl in a miniskirt?" Mrs. Croft sniffs: "I'd have her arrested."

When the narrator's wife, Mala, arrives from Calcutta, Mrs. Croft scrutinizes her "from top to toe with what seemed to be placid disdain. I wondered if Mrs. Croft had ever seen a woman in a sari, with a dot painted on her forehead and bracelets stacked on her wrists. I wondered what she would object to. I wondered if she could see the red dye still vivid on Mala's feet, all but obscured by the bottom edge of her sari. At last Mrs. Croft declared, with equal measure of disbelief and delight I know well:'She is a perfect lady!'"

It is this scrutiny that first evokes the narrator's empathy with his bride for it reminds him of his own experiences as a bewildered stranger in London. Looking back, "I like to think of that moment in Mrs. Croft's parlor as the moment when the distance between Mala and me began to lessen."

The interviewer's question: "You have an uncanny ability to get inside a deiverse collection of characters, regardless of age, gender, nationality, or personality. How do you zero in on your characters? Do you make detailed dossiers of look for some specific physical or emotional key or do you simply intuit these people as you write? In particular, how did Mrs. Croft come about?

Lahiri's reply: "My characters are generally always composites of people I know, people I've heard of, people I imagine, and a little drop of myself. Mainly it's a matter of intuition, of putting yourself in the body and mind of another person. It's almost like acting, only instead of performing, you portray the person in language. Mrs. Croft was based on an actual perosn. When my father first came to America, he lived for a few months in the home of a 103-year old woman. He told me a few things about her -- she insisted that my father sit with her for a while every evening, and she talked endlessly about the man on the moon. He also mentioned that she was a piano teacher. I worked these details into Mrs. Croft's character and imagined the rest."

I wish the anthology had a dozen author interviews -- presenting the story behind the story.

--C. J. Singh

Yes, the short story is alive and well. It is no longer a medium of popular entertainment but it lives on in numerous small literary magazines and anthologies, in devoted readers, and in a rising generation of great new short story writers.

This collection includes a wide range of styles and voices, but all are brilliantly done, accessible and engaging. Many of the newer short story voices are included as well as a few of the old masters, such as Hawthorne and Chekhov. Some of the writers are not afraid to break the rules--there are stories with omniscient point of view and stories that span several decades--but these authors know what they are doing and the stories work--brilliantly. The short stories are grouped into sections based on the life cycle, with short and helpful introductory comments.

The book includes delightful short interviews with three of the authors, which will be especially appealing to the authors among us. The Fiction Gallery is one of the finest collections of short stories I have ever read. I recommend it most highly. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.

Gotham Writers' Workshop's _Fiction Gallery: Exceptional Short Stories_ is a complete toolbox of writing techniques. Masters of the art of fiction--from Hawthorne to Chopin to Carver to Borges to ZZ Packer--illustrate craft in this well-chosen sampling of fictional works. Interviews with authors about their processes add another dimension. _Fiction Gallery_ is an affordable, accessible, and comprehensive collection.

Dr. Denise Low, professor of creative writing

I have taken a class at the Gotham Writers' Workshop, and I highly recommend it. My former teacher, Thom Didato, is one of the editors of this collection. The purpose of this book is to give the reader (writer) an overview of the short story. Sure, there are countless other anthologies of short stories out there, but those either reprint the same ones over and over, or they cater to specialized markets. As it says in the introduction, "We've taken great pains to select stories that the general public will find gripping and entertaining." In other words, these stories qualify as literary fiction, but they are not pretentious or boring. There are a couple of classic stories here, by such authors as Carver, Chekov, and Hawthorne; but it is mostly comprised of contemporary stories that are only a few years old.

This book is a valuable guide to the state of the modern short story.

Though best known as a performer, Groucho Marx always cherished the opportunity to express himself in writing. Robert S. Bader has collected a large number of his short works -- some of them autobiographical, others comic essays and letters -- most of which have never been published before in book form. Unlike the recent collection "The Essential Groucho," by Stefan Kanfer, which contained excerpts from Marx Brothers plays, films, and television shows, all the pieces collected here were written by Groucho himself (or were they? Bader's long, well-written introduction discusses the contributions of Groucho's silent collaborator, Arthur Sheekman). Not every one is a gem, but on the whole the collection is delightful. A "must" addition to any Marx collection.

One of the greatest books I've ever read on Groucho's written humor! Very complete! New info for old fans! I loved it! ....

Groucho was a funny man, we know that. He was an essayist, maybe we didn't know that. He wanted to be known foremost as a writer. Here's proof he should be.

This collection of Marx's essays is read by Carl Reiner. Reiner reads all of Groucho's works with a stunning facimile af Groucho's voice. It's as if Groucho himself has come back just to read this collection. Reiner's innate comedian's timing rounds out this performance making one of the best recorded performances I've had the pleasure of listening to.

Guaranteed to make a Groucho lover out of anyone. Even your kids..

A lot of the material in this book shows up in many of Groucho's other books, but the new material is very entertaining. Not quite as funny as the Groucho Letters, but a must for any Groucho fan...

This book is jam-packed with strategic mini-lessons that teachers have been desperately searching for!. Connie and Sherra have done an outstanding job of bringing simplicity to focused instruction.

Collaboratively developed and compiled by Connie Campbell Dierking and Sherra Ann Jones, Growing Up Writing: Mini-lessons For Emergent And Beginning Writers presents fifty-nine abbreviated lessons especially designed and intended for the kindergarten classroom. From teaching young folks to write their first journal, to audience and conference etiquette, to print awareness, learning how to make a brainstorm list, using transition words, describing feelings with all five senses, and more, Growing Up Writing is a superbly organized and idea-packed resource which is very highly recommended for classroom teachers, and ideal for use by home schoolers in developing writing skills with young children.

The research is clear concerning writing workshops: They are the most effective way to teach the craft and process of writing. This being the case, they should not, contend the authors, be reserved for the upper grades. Rather, all writers-including kindergartners and older emergent writers-should have the opportunity to experience the writer's workshop.

If you are interested in incorporating a writing workshop into your kindergarten or first grade curriculum, this book will serve as an excellent starting point and guide. In addition to answering your questions, it provides nearly sixty mini-lessons as well as a year-long calendar which can serve as your framework.

In their introduction, Dierking and Jones write that "kindergartners-and emergent writers of any age-should be treated like genuine authors and taught in a manner that respects their abilities while empowering their advancements." This is not merely a flowery sentiment. The entire book flows from this belief.

In Section 1, the authors discuss in detail their framework for teaching a workshop. The three parts are: the mini-lesson (5-10 minutes), independent practice with conferencing (20-30 minutes), and sharing (5-10 minutes). Also included is a chapter on "Connecting to Parents." Here the reader will find sample parent letters, information about homework, and a discussion of student journals.

The "meat" of the book is found in Sections 2-5. Section 2 comprises operational mini-lessons. That is, direct instruction of skills related to the "management of classroom process, materials, and spaces." Section 3 concerns print awareness mini-lessons. Here readers are provided with lessons that address the mechanics of writing: punctuation, capital letters, temporary spelling, and such. In Section 4 the authors include twelve foundational mini-lessons: setting, character development, choosing a topic, etc. Section 5 is devoted to craft mini-lessons. Here the lessons focus on using transition words, active verbs, color words, compare and contrast, word choice, elaboration and so forth.

Appended are a literature list and a bibliography. The literature list contains the titles of children's books and suggestions as to which mini-lesson the book is good for modeling. would be good for modeling. The bibliography is a list of recommended professional literature. The choices are excellent and will provide the reader with a firm foundation concerning the workshop process.

Highly Recommended.

Reviewed by the Education Oasis Staff

Excellent, excellent book for your reading and writing program. DO NOT teach without it!!!

The step-by-step directions, along with helpful hints, make this a wonderful book for the beginning writer. Whitney designed this book as a textbook for writing classes she taught. I have enjoyed using this book as a guide for my own novel.

What do you want your book to say? That's your premise. This work is money well spent, to develope your premise. You'll get soem great ideas, and the work will take your thoughts into new directions.

Phyllis A. Whitney was one of my first favorite authors. Back in the day, I could hardly wait for her new releases to show up in my dad's monthly book club mailings. He would always buy them for me because, of course, he wanted to encourage a lively interest in books.

Phyllis Whitney fueled my love of reading then, and now, years later, she fuels my love of writing. Her "Guide to Fiction Writing" covers all of the basics including plot, characters, outlines, research, conflict, suspense, revision, etc. She delves into the craft of writing and expounds on the finer points such as "show, don't tell." The whole book is written in a comfortable, casual style, as though she is having a private discussion with the reader-who she clearly respects as a fellow writer. She's not sitting on a high horse looking down her nose at all of us. It feels more like she's sitting on the other end of the sofa.

What I like best about this book is the way the author projects enthusiasm for the business of writing and stays positive about finding success. "Good fortune and opportunities are always coming along," she writes. "Perhaps opportunity is like a train on an endless track. Now and then it makes a stop at your station, often without fanfare, and without warning...When the breaks came for me I was doing the right thing. I didn't know it was the right thing, but even when there was no opportunity in sight, I was working. You, who may be just beginning: What you do now counts. Never mind the rejections, the discouragement, the voices of ridicule (there can be those too). Work and wait and learn, and that train will come by. If you give up, you'll never have a chance to climb aboard."

Although it was written over twenty years ago, this book is timeless...as is Phyllis Whitney herself.

I got this book when I was 12 or 13 for Christmas...and it is still my most valuable writing tool. Some people can just write without planning and outlining, but I'm not one of those people. If I don't outline, I can't get through the first chapter.

I have a lot of discipline to develop...but the projects I've gotten the farthest on have been because of using this book's methods! And I'm quite sure when I finally do publish a novel...that it will be because of the organizational techniques I learned in this book!