The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Caitlin O'Connell, author of The Elephant’s Secret Sense and the upcoming The Boys Club about male society from the elephant perspective. She is also co-author of a children’s nonfiction science book called The Elephant Scientist. Her essay in the August issue (2009) of The Writer magazine strives to assist the nature writer in “casting words in nature’s best light.”Her entry begins:
Because I teach a creative writing class for Stanford’s Continuing Studies program, I’m always on the lookout for books to recommend to my students on the craft of writing.Read an excerpt from The Elephant’s Secret Sense and learn more about the book at the publisher's website.Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott was recently recommended and it didn’t take long to see why. Part of my phobia of self-help books is the assumption that they deliver dry facts on how I should behave within the discipline of writing and inevitably make me feel like I’ve somehow failed at my craft if I’m not able to do my daily writing exercises, keep a diary and be religious about outlining prior to writing. Anne Lamott blows those fears out of the water with her wonderful and frank personal narrative about a writer’s struggles, failures and successes, while weaving in motives for trying some concrete, very accessible tools to assist writers in moving forward with their goals. I highly recommend this book to writers, would-be writers, as well as readers looking for a fun personal narrative.[read on]
The Page 99 Test: The Elephant’s Secret Sense.
Writers Read: Caitlin O'Connell.
--Marshal Zeringue
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