Need help beating the winter doldrums? These may help. They’re books and articles we used in researching We Wanted to Be Writers, prepping for our panel at AWP, “Can the Creative Process Be Taught? Or Will Chicken Soup Do?” and for inspiration in general.
On Creativity, by David Bohm
“The Creativity Crisis,” by Po Bronson and Ashely Merriman, July 10, 2010, The Daily Beast
Ron Carlson Writes a Story by Ron Carlson
Creativity and Flow, both by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“Creative Writing Can Be Taught: Creative Writing Professors Answer More Important Questions,” Donnelly, Dianne, et al, and “What is Creative Writing, Anyway?” Donnelly, et al.
The Midnight Disease by Alice W. Flaherty
On Becoming a Novelist by John Gardiner
The Creative Process by Brewster Ghiselin
The Courage to Write by Ralph Keyes
Stephen King On Writing by Stephen King
The Act of Creation by Arthur Koestler
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn
Henry Miller On Writing by Henry Miller
The Faith of a Writer by Joyce Carol Oates
We Wanted to Be Writers: Life, Love, and Literature at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop by Eric Olsen and Glenn Schaeffer. Hey! Nobody said it was an unbiased list.
Shop Talk by Philip Roth
13 Ways of Looking at the Novel, by Jane Smiley
“Angles on Dialogue,” by Douglas Unger; Writer’s Chronicle, February 2009. Available to AWP members through e-Link
“On Inspiration: Thomas Wolfe, Jorge Luis Borges, Raymond Carver,” by Douglas Unger; Writer’s Chronicle, October/November 2009 Available to AWP members through e-Link
And several books about the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, all of which touch on the creative process:
The Eleventh Draft, edited by Frank Conroy
A Community of Writers, edited by Robert Dana.
The Workshop, edited by Tom Grimes
The Iowa Writers’ Workshop, by Stephen Wilbers
Go be creative.
So we get a YouTube of the panel(s) right? dc