Resources

Articles by myself on publishing

* How To Write A Nonfiction Book Proposal

Further articles coming soon, including: No Right Answers aka Finding An Agent/Publisher; Types of Editing.

Useful books, articles, and links

If you can only read one work on writing, make it Constance Hale’s Sin and Syntax – it’s the most accessible and most fun guide to the basic foundations, namely parts of speech, sentences, and making music in your writing.

On writing, creativity, and the writer’s life
* Ray Bradbury, Zen In The Art Of Writing
* Po Bronson, The Writing Life
* Allen Ginsberg’s Mind Writing Slogans
* Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down The Bones: Freeing The Writer Within
* Kate Grenville, Searching For The Secret River (a memoir of the writing of her novel The Secret River)
* Jack Kerouac’s Essentials Of Spontaneous Prose and Belief & Technique For Modern Prose
* Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft
* Anne Lamott on Shitty First Drafts from Bird By Bird
* Francine Prose, Reading Like A Writer
* W.G. Sebald’s Writing Tips, plus all that again and more on Sebald from Five Dials
* Ten Rules For Writing Fiction personal dos and don’ts from Geoff Dyer, Neil Gaiman, Hilary Mantel, Andrew Motion, Jeanette Winterson, and many others
* Jeff Vandermeer, Booklife and Booklife blog

Writing experiments and exercises
* Jack Collom’s brilliant Ecosystem Of Writing Ideas
* Charles Bernstein’s Experiments
* Bernadette Mayer’s Writing Experiments
* DIY: write your own exercises. Task yourself on them, and trade them with your friends.
* And join or start a writing group. Get your writing read by other writers and readers: it can only gain from it. If you are interested in being published, be aware that writing that has been tried on good readers is writing that has a greater chance of being published.

On craft, technique, form, and usage
* Harry Bingham, How To Write
* Roy Peter Clark, Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies For Every Writer (handy PDF of the 50 tips linked here)
* Jack Collom and Sheryl Noethe, Poetry Everywhere
* Stephen Fry, The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking The Poet Within
* John Gardner, The Art Of Fiction
* Natalie Goldberg, Old Friend From Far Away: The Practice Of Writing Memoir
* Constance Hale, Sin And Syntax: How To Craft Wickedly Effective Prose and www.sinandsyntax.com
* Alice LaPlante, The Making Of A Story
* Ursula K. Le Guin, Steering The Craft: Exercises And Discussions On Story Writing
* Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman, How Not To Write A Novel: 200 Classic Mistakes And How To Avoid Them
* Steve Moran, Common Faults In Short Stories Submitted
* Richard Nordquist, Grammar and Composition at About.com
* John Seely, Oxford A-Z Of Grammar And Punctuation

On editing and revising
* Susan Bell, The Artful Edit: On The Practice Of Editing Yourself
* Amy Einsohn, The Copyeditor’s Handbook
* Karen Judd, Copyediting
* Carol Fisher Saller, The Subversive Copyeditor and blog
* typetester compare type for the screen

On publishing
* Diana Athill, Stet: An Editor’s Life
* Margaret Atwood, The Rocky Road To Paper Heaven
* Harry Bingham, Writers’ And Artists’ Yearbook Guide To Getting Published
* The Book Designer ‘practical advice to build better books’ (and lots of great advice at that)
* Nathan Bransford, Author a blog from a writer and former agent with news, views, resources for writers, and excellent FAQs
* Therese Eiben and Mary Gannon, ed., The Practical Writer: From Inspiration To Publication
* Galleycat, ‘Successful Query Letters For Literary Agents’ (fiction) and ‘Agent Query Letters That Actually Worked For Nonfiction’
* David Gaughran, Let’s Get Digital: How To Self-Publish, And Why You Should
* Chris Hamilton-Emery, 101 Ways To Make Poems Sell
* Betsy Lerner, The Forest For The Trees: An Editor’s Advice For Writers plus her excellent blog
* Ellen Lupton, ed., Indie Publishing: How To Design And Publish Your Own Book
* Nicola Morgan, Write To Be Published and Help! I Need A Publisher blog
* Michael Neff, Why Do Passionate Writers Fail To Publish?
* Gabriel Zaid, So Many Books: Reading And Publishing In An Age Of Abundance

Other websites for writers
* Mantex writing skills, reviews, tutorials
* Poets & Writers

Reference
* Bing Translator
* Online Etymology Dictionary

Curiosities and inspirations
* The Allen Ginsberg Project
* The Book Bench from the New Yorker
* Birdsong Radio
* The Book Cover Archive
* The Gallery Of ‘Misused’ Quotation Marks
* I Love Typography
* The Making Of Mastering The Art Of French Cooking
* Experience Naropa University
* J.K. Rowling, ‘The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination’, 2008 Harvard Commencement Address
* Words Without Borders new writing in translation
* Writers at Warwick Audio Archive