You Can Write!: The Inside Scoop on Publishing Your Nonfiction Book

You Can Write!: The Inside Scoop on Publishing Your Nonfiction Book Review

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You Can Write!: The Inside Scoop on Publishing Your Nonfiction Book Feature

“Your advice is great!”—Kristine M. Clerkin, Vice President, Houghton Mifflin

“What a great resource this is. May you reach out and touch all those aspiring writers out there who need a good reality check!”—Caroline Pincus, freelance editor and former senior editor, HarperSanFrancisco

What does it REALLY take to get published?

This comprehensive, no-nonsense guide written by the founders of the award-winning website, YouCanWrite.com, gives you the inside scoop on everything you need to know to move your book from idea to publishable project.

Filled with practical, realistic yet compassionate advice and insights, You Can Write! illuminates the secrets of:

• The publishing business: How agents and editors make decisions, what they’re looking for, and how you can learn to deal with them successfully.
• Query letters: Why first impressions are supremely important, and what your query letter must do to attract enthusiastic literary agent and editor attention.
• Book proposals: Why they are essential, and what it takes to create a compelling proposal that sells your book idea. Includes one full model proposal of a published book to help you create yours.
• Literary agents: Why you do or do not need one, what they do, what you can expect, and how to approach them successfully.
• Your author résumé: Why your profile as an author—your expertise, your experience, and your track record—is more important than ever, and how you can enhance yours.

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Voice and Vision: A Guide to Writing History and Other Serious Nonfiction

Voice and Vision: A Guide to Writing History and Other Serious Nonfiction Review

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Voice and Vision: A Guide to Writing History and Other Serious Nonfiction Feature

It has become commonplace these days to speak of “unpacking” texts. Voice and Vision is a book about packing that prose in the first place. While history is scholarship, it is also art—that is, literature. And while it has no need to emulate fiction, slump into memoir, or become self-referential text, its composition does need to be conscious and informed.

Voice and Vision is for those who wish to understand the ways in which literary considerations can enhance nonfiction writing. At issue is not whether writing is scholarly or popular, narrative or analytical, but whether it is good. Fiction has guidebooks galore; journalism has shelves stocked with manuals; certain hybrids such as creative nonfiction and the new journalism have evolved standards, esthetics, and justifications for how to transfer the dominant modes of fiction to topics in nonfiction. But history and other serious or scholarly nonfiction have nothing comparable.

Now this curious omission is addressed by Stephen Pyne as he analyzes and teaches the craft that undergirds whole realms of nonfiction and book-based academic disciplines. With eminent good sense concerning the unique problems posed by research-based writing and with a wealth of examples from accomplished writers, Pyne, an experienced and skilled writer himself, explores the many ways to understand what makes good nonfiction, and explains how to achieve it. His counsel and guidance will be invaluable to experts as well as novices in the art of writing serious and scholarly nonfiction.

(20100203)

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The New New Journalism: Conversations with America's Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft

The New New Journalism: Conversations with America's Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft Review

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The New New Journalism: Conversations with America's Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft Feature

Forty years after Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson, and Gay Talese launched the New Journalism movement, Robert S. Boynton sits down with nineteen practitioners of what he calls the New New Journalism to discuss their methods, writings and careers.

The New New Journalists are first and foremost brilliant reporters who immerse themselves completely in their subjects. Jon Krakauer accompanies a mountaineering expedition to Everest. Ted Conover works for nearly a year as a prison guard. Susan Orlean follows orchid fanciers to reveal an obsessive subculture few knew existed. Adrian Nicole LeBlanc spends nearly a decade reporting on a family in the South Bronx. And like their muckraking early twentieth-century precursors, they are drawn to the most pressing issues of the day: Alex Kotlowitz, Leon Dash, and William Finnegan to race and class; Ron Rosenbaum to the problem of evil; Michael Lewis to boom-and-bust economies; Richard Ben Cramer to the nitty gritty of politics. How do they do it? In these interviews, they reveal the techniques and inspirations behind their acclaimed works, from their felt-tip pens, tape recorders, long car rides, and assumed identities; to their intimate understanding of the way a truly great story unfolds.

Interviews with:
Gay Talese
Jane Kramer*
Calvin Trillin
Richard Ben Cramer*
Ted Conover*
Alex Kotlowitz*
Richard Preston*
William Langewiesche*
Eric Schlosser
Leon Dash
William Finnegan
Jonathan Harr*
Jon Krakauer*
Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
Michael Lewis*
Susan Orlean
Ron Rosenbaum
Lawrence Weschler*
Lawrence Wright*

* Search our online catalog to find other titles by these Vintage and Anchor Books authors.

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The Readers' Advisory Guide to Nonfiction

The Readers' Advisory Guide to Nonfiction Review

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The Readers' Advisory Guide to Nonfiction Feature

Navigating what at she calls the extravagantly rich world of nonfiction, renowned readers advisor (RA) Wyatt builds readers advisory bridges from fiction to compelling and increasingly popular nonfiction to encompass the library s entire collection. She focuses on eight popular categories: history, true crime, true adventure, science, memoir, food/cooking, travel, and sports. Within each, she explains the scope, popularity, style, major authors and works, and the subject s position in readers advisory interviews.



Wyatt addresses who is reading nonfiction and why, while providing RAs with the tools and language to incorporate nonfiction into discussions that point readers to what to read next. In easy-to-follow steps, Wyatt



* Explains the hows and whys of offering fiction and nonfiction suggestions together
* Illustrates ways to get up to speed fast in nonfiction
* Shows how to lead readers to a variety of books using her read-around and reading map strategies
* Provides tools to build nonfiction subject guides for the collection



This hands-on guide includes nonfiction bibliography, key authors, benchmark books with annotations, and core collections. It is destined to become the nonfiction bible for readers advisory and collection development, helping librarians, library workers, and patrons select great reading from the entire library collection!

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