Every Writer Has a Thousand Faces by David Biespiel

Every Writer Has a Thousand Faces by David Biespiel (Kelson Books, July 2010)

This book just arrive in my mailbox to review and I am so looking forward to reading it!  Whatever is currently on my nightstand, this book will knock it off.  I'll let you know how I like it.

Here's the description on Amazon--

Every Writer Has a Thousand Faces cracks open the creative process and invites readers to take a fresh look at the mysterious pathways of the imagination. "Failure is the engine of creativity" writes poet and critic David Biespiel in this provocative book based on his 2009 lecture at the Rainier Writers' Workshop. Biespiel candidly tracks his own development as a writer and challenges traditional assumptions about writing that can stifle creativity. The liberating message: Working past the brink of failure -being free to try and discard and try again-is what allows the creative process to playfully flourish, keeping the spirit open to unexpected discoveries. Both beginning and experienced writers-as well as artists, musicians, dancers, and anyone else on a creative path-will benefit from this elegant, surprising, and fresh perspective based on methods developed exclusively at the Attic, the unique literary studio Biespiel founded in Portland, Oregon, in 1999. Every Writer Has a Thousand Faces will revolutionize the way readers look at their own creative process. It is a rich and rewarding book, a captivating glimpse into the inner life of some gifted writers and painters-and above all, a guide to a lifetime of discovery.


***It only has 114 pages, so I should finish it quickly.



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I'm a huge Chip Kidd fan, so I was intrigued when I saw he co-authored True Prep with Lisa Birnbach, author of the 80's The Official Preppy Handbook.

As someone who once wore a blue Izod shirt under a pink Izod shirt, let's just say I *may* have read or browsed the Preppy Handbook. So there is definitely an inner-preppy part of me that is interested in this new book.

Anyhoo, here's a couple videos for you.

The first is Chip Kidd talking briefly about True Prep and how the Official Preppy Handbook changed his life, but mostly, he talks about comic book heroes and graphic art.  The second is a book trailer for True Prep.

Oh and by the way, if you do have an original copy of The Official Preppy Handbook, they are going for quite a bit of money online right now.

True Prep: It's a Whole New Old World

The Official Preppy Handbook




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Upcoming Book Reviews --

Frances McCue's The Car That Brought You Here Still Runs: Revisiting the Northwest Towns of Richard Hugo (Samuel and Althea Stroum Book)


Cristin O'Keefe's poetry collection Everything Is Everything


Dorothy Barresi's American Fanatics (Pitt Poetry Series)


The Least of These: Poems by Todd Davis


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Girls Will Be Girls: Raising Confident & Courageous Daughter

Girls Will Be Girls: Raising Confident and Courageous Daughters by Joann Deak (published 2003)


If you have a daughter coming up to the "tween" phase or in the tween phase (ages 8-12), this is a book for you as it helps explain all the things girls are going through and offers ideas on how to parent through these new waters.  

For me the book is worth it for just for the section on girl friendships and how exploring those relationships.  It discusses cliques, fitting in and how some girls use "camouflaging" as a way to protect themselves while they go through what can be an awkward stage of development.

The goal is help your daughter not lose her self or her voice in the process of this change.

Anyway, I read the book in just a few evenings and actually enjoyed it with its examples and shorter sections written in a very easy to read and digest style.

Highly recommend for anyone with a daughter between 8-12 or read this before your daughter becomes a tween!  Probably a better way to go!

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Summer Reading! Poetry!

I am so behind sharing my summer reading list with you.

Here are the book of poems I am currently reading (or have read):

Allen Braden: A Wreath of Down and Drops of Blood (The VQR Poetry Series)

Elizabeth Austen: The Girl Who Goes Alone (Floating Bridge Press Chapbook)

Rachel Contreni Flynn:  Tongue

Alexandra Teague: Mortal Geography 

Arda Collins:  It Is Daylight (Yale Series of Younger Poets)

Karen Finneyfrock: Ceremony for the Choking Ghost

Robert FanningAmerican Prophet

Jennifer K. Sweeney:  How to Live on Bread and Music



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Summer Reading List!

The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life by Twyla Tharp - I highly recommend this book.  This is my second time reading it and I love it. While she is a dancer, her words help all artists with routine, inspiration, ideas.  Probably one of my all time favorite books.

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The Artistic Mother: A Practical Guide to Fitting Creativity into Your Life by Shona Cole.   A great book for people who want to try new ways to create such as photography, collage, and even poetry gets a mention!  I love that she wrote this book while being the mother of 5 (five!) kids.  Inspiring!

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The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us: Christopher Chabris & Daniel Simons (I'm enjoying this!)

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Seeking Peace: Chronicles of the Worst Buddhist in the World by Mary Pipher  (Finished!  Loved this.)  It's interesting because it goes into how after Mary became a huge success and so well-known with Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls, she basically had a nervous breakdown.

For anyone who has dealt with anxiety or can become easily overwhelmed, this is an incredible look at how for some of us, there is "too much" and we can feel or get overloaded.

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Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein  (had a hard time getting into this and set it down, will try to pick it up later...)

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Mini Reviews -

The Alchemist's Kitchen  Poems by Susan Rich - I keep this book on my desk because it's inspiring to me as a poet to reach to it and read a poem or two before I start my own writing.  I saw Susan pop up on a lot of blogs this weekend at AWP, so I'm guessing that a lot of you will have this book on your desk too.  Enjoy it. It's her 3rd book of poems and really a great mixing of subjects and themes throughout.  A very satisfying read.

RECOMMEND!


Living Oprah: My One-Year Experiment to Walk the Walk of the Queen of Talk  Robyn Okrant - I am a huge fan of these "one-year memoirs," where a writer decides to do something for a year then reports on the results in hopefully a smart and witty way.  I'm only into the first chapter of this, but am already enjoying it.

She wanted to try living her life by doing everything Oprah said she should do.  She blogged about the experience here, and it looks like she's onto a new project called Ready.Set.Wife.

Still reading, but I think this will be a RECOMMEND book if the author continues the same style and wit she has established early on in the book.


Do-Over!: In which a forty-eight-year-old father of three returns to kindergarten, summer camp, the prom, and other embarrassments   by Robin Hemley.  Here's another "memoir" with a similar take, Robin Hemley decides to return to all the events in his childhood that didn't go well.

If you've never read Robin Hemley, he's both an incredible writer, and funny.  He wrote my favorite short story "Reply All" about an email that takes on a life of its own. I heard him read it and my stomach hurt from laughing so hard.

Anyway, Do-Over is in Robin's witty, insightful style and is right now the book I don't want to end.  I am actually refusing to read the last couple chapters because I do not want to stop reading this book.  I will be sad when it's over.

RECOMMEND!  - This book has just been a joy to read.  Robin's a fantastic writer and I love the situations he ends up in.


Autobiography of Andre Agassi: OPEN  I'm kind of embarrassed to post this one here as 1) I'm not really a fan of Andre Agassi  2) This is my second famous-person memoir I've read in two months (um, the first being Howie Mandel's Here's the Deal: Don't Touch Me - I know, it's not even confession Tuesday and I'm tossing these things out), but I have to tell you, I am a sucker for reading books that show how one person got to the place he or she is at in life.  I am always curious to what came into play, the person's hardwork vs. luck, their motivation, desires, passions.

But honestly, while I finished this book, towards the last couple of chapter I was ready to whop Andre over the head with his "I hate tennis.  No, I *really* hate tennis" mantra and crybaby attitude for not making his own choices in life.  Still, I finished the book and let me tell you it was LONG.  When you begin a book and the narrator says, "I was 7 years old..." you know, you're going to be there for a while.

I'll summarize his life for him:  forced to play tennis as a kid (all his brothers and sisters were, he was just the best and the last chance for his dad to have a tennis pro son), went to a tennis school where he got terrible grades, rebelled, drank, became pro at 17, started losing his hair, married Brooke Shields, did meth, got off drugs, divorced Brooke, married Steffi Graf, had 2 kids, opened a school for troubled youth.

Anyway, I liked it enough to finish it (read:  I was curious about how an athlete gets hooked on drugs as that seems insane to me and also how he ended up with Steffi Graf because I'm shallow that way), but the NY Times liked it more than I did.  I'll just say, there's 8 hours of my life I'll never get back.

PASS ON THIS - I can't say I can recommend unless you are a huge Andre Agassi fan and really want to learn the inner details of how his life played out.