heather sellers the practice of creative writing pdf

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The practice of creative writing : a guide for students

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The Practice of Creative Writing

Psychology in Everyday Life

A guide for students fourth edition | ©2021 heather sellers.

ISBN:9781319321161

Take notes, add highlights, and download our mobile-friendly e-books.

ISBN:9781319215958

Read and study old-school with our bound texts.

ISBN:9781319458263

This package includes E-book and E-book.

ISBN:9781319458294

This package includes Paperback and Paperback.

Be bold. Write well. Have fun.

When it comes to writing, The Practice of Creative Writing has a simple message: you can do this, and it’s worthwhile to try. Designed for students in the introductory course, The Practice of Creative Writing teaches writers how to trust their own voice, experiment with form, and develop a writing process that allows them to spend more productive time at the desk.   Rather than locking into one genre early, writers are encouraged to work among and in between genres and to focus on creating a writing practice that privileges close observation, patience, and techniques of pattern, energy, and shape. Heather Sellers, who writes in multiple genres herself, has developed a lively, welcoming, student-centered approach that teaches creative concentration, close reading, and generating pages. She provides opportunities to be playful and to experiment at the same time that she teaches students the importance of discipline, form, and craft. Heather Sellers is a certified online instructor, and The Practice of Creative Writing is designed to be used in traditional face-to-face classrooms or in online education. Each chapter begins with objectives for that module. Prompts and writing practices are carefully sequenced. Every chapter ends with both genre-specific writing projects alongside hybrid and experimental prompts. The readings included in this new edition invite students to experience an even wider range of innovative and new literatures.  A new chapter on creative ways to approach revision as a shaping practice engaged throughout the writing process helps students work harder on their writing.

New to This Edition

"The Practice of Creative Writing stands out as an inspiring, engaging, and useful text for beginning creative writers. Heather Sellers manages to introduce core concepts and literary techniques with an emphasis on practice that is integral to building a multi-genre course without being overly prescriptive. Instructors can choose from a variety of contemporary literature selections and provide students with the models, writing prompts, and exercises that help them grow as creative writers." — Kathleen McCoy, Adirondack CC, Queensbury "The Practice of Creative Writing by Heather Sellers is the most useful creative writing textbook on the market. It addresses student writers in an amiable, colloquial way and makes complex ideas about writing craft simple and approachable. The book is an enthusiastic invitation to students to engage the exciting, infinite possibilities of the art of creative writing." — Scott Ward, Eckerd College "This text helps students think outside the boxes of genre to instead focus on the building blocks of creativity and the nuances of form and technique. By teaching writers to analyze literature as a careful balance of image, tension, energy, pattern, and insight, they can in turn understand how to employ the same elements in their own work in order to engage and move their readers." — Dr. Courtney Huse Wika, Black Hills State University "Sellers text is very student friendly. It successfully helps the beginning creative writer into the writing field by making solid comparisons to other art fields they may be familiar with and utilize. It talks about writing in practical terms while not dazzling readers with literary terms for the sake of labelling." — Joyce Kessel, Villa Maria College, Buffalo "This is my go-to text in intro to CW. Ive adopted it; Ive recommended it. Its a perfect balance of wit, humility, and intellect. Behind the words, you sense a real person--a writer--not a corporate shadow. Heather Sellers walks readers through the intricacies of creative writing with a lovely balance of humor and rigor." — Jeffrey Newberry, Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College "I really think this is an incredibly adroit text in that the writer writes with her audience well in mind. This responsiveness spans many aspects of the book, its structure, its content, its voice and style, even down to paragraph structure. There are many repetitions in the chapter sections and this great; when students don’t know how to read for main ideas, the repetitions aid in reinforcing their learning. The volume begins with students’ reading a graphic comic, something with which they are familiar, and then moves to approaching literary texts, something with which they are less familiar. It draws many analogies using music, again, something that students both know and care about. On these rhetorical levels, this is probably the best introduction to creative writing I’ve even read and used, and I’ve been teaching creative writing for 26 years." — Scott Ward, Eckerd College "The literary selections are outstanding, representing a multicultural array of authors with contemporary relevance, high interest, and a mix of well-known and lesser known writers." — Kathleen McCoy, Adirondack CC, Queensbury "I generally dont use or like textbooks, but this textbook caught my eye. This is largely because the author approaches creative writing like a practicing artist might, coaching students towards their best and deepest selves, offering surprising insights and exercises, building their close-reading muscles, encouraging honest and specific images and sentences. I love this about the book, and this is what distinguishes it for me." — Maria Brandt, Monroe CC "The Practice of Creative Writing stands out from other creative writing textbooks because it focuses on critical craft principles - such as the use of sensory detail, writing to communicate tension and insight, and revision practices - over a rigid focus on form or progressing through forms. It allows the instructor the freedom to pair the textbook with as few or as many forms as they want to assign in their creative writing classes." — Martha Webber, Cal State Fullerton "This is a creative writing textbook written by an accomplished and articulate WRITER, who understands the writing process and uses a teachable, effective approach for introducing students to writing in multiple genres." — Patricia Francisco, Hamline University, St. Paul "Heather has selected an awesome collection of creative works that exemplify a variety of forms. A number of these shorter/quicker forms (e.g., flash fiction), are great for getting novice creative writers acclimated to the depth and temperature of the water." — Bill Gary, Kentucky Community & Technical College System "This book takes a "personal trainer" approach to the practice of writing. It is a gentle, encouraging voice in the writers ear." — Robert Cowser, St. Lawrence University

Fourth Edition | ©2021

Heather Sellers

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Fourth Edition | 2021

Table of Contents

Heather Sellers is professor of English in the graduate and undergraduate writing programs at the University of South Florida, where she was honored with a university-wide teaching award. She offers courses for creative writers in hybrid and experimental writing, fiction, memoir, essays, and poetry as well as a course for teachers of creative writing. Born and raised in Orlando, Florida, she earned her PhD in English/Creative Writing at Florida State University. She has taught at New York University, the University of Texas–San Antonio, St. Lawrence University, and for almost two decades, Hope College, where she was elected Professor of the Year. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Fiction and a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers award for her short story collection Georgia Under Water, she has published widely in a variety of genres. Her work appears in the New York Times; The Pushcart Prize anthology; The Best American Essays; O, the Oprah Magazine; Good Housekeeping; Reader’s Digest; Parade; Real Simple; On the Seawall; Adroit; Longreads; Creative Nonfiction; and frequently in The Sun Magazine. Her memoir You Don’t Look Like Anyone I Know: A True Story of Family, Face Blindness, and Forgiveness was a Michigan Notable Book of the Year and Editor’s Choice at The New York Times Book Review. Other publications include Drinking Girls and Their Dresses: Poems; and Spike and Cubby’s Ice Cream Island Adventure, a children’s book. She lives in Saint Petersburg, Florida. Her website is heathersellers.com .

Fourth Edition | 2021

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The Practice of Creative Writing

Fourth  edition | ©2021  heather sellers.

ISBN:9781319321161

Take notes, add highlights, and download our mobile-friendly e-books.

ISBN:9781319215958

Read and study old-school with our bound texts.

Includes eBook Trial Access

ISBN:9781319458294

This package includes Paperback and Paperback.

Digital Options

A friendly, supportive book especially for creative writers Whether you’re a fiction writer, a poet, a playwright, or memoirist, The Practice of Creative Writing teaches the essential techniques for crafting powerful work. Rather than constraining you or your writing, this course embraces creative play, experimentation, and five-minute, flash and micro forms.  Included in this volume are dozens of writing prompts, resources for publishing and presenting your work, and a wide range of engaging samples by popular contemporary authors. Be bold. Write well. Have fun.

Read online (or offline) with all the highlighting and notetaking tools you need to be successful in this course.

Table of Contents

Heather Sellers

Heather Sellers is professor of English in the graduate and undergraduate writing programs at the University of South Florida, where she was honored with a university-wide teaching award. She offers courses for creative writers in hybrid and experimental writing, fiction, memoir, essays, and poetry as well as a course for teachers of creative writing. Born and raised in Orlando, Florida, she earned her PhD in English/Creative Writing at Florida State University. She has taught at New York University, the University of Texas–San Antonio, St. Lawrence University, and for almost two decades, Hope College, where she was elected Professor of the Year. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Fiction and a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers award for her short story collection Georgia Under Water, she has published widely in a variety of genres. Her work appears in the New York Times; The Pushcart Prize anthology; The Best American Essays; O, the Oprah Magazine; Good Housekeeping; Reader’s Digest; Parade; Real Simple; On the Seawall; Adroit; Longreads; Creative Nonfiction; and frequently in The Sun Magazine. Her memoir You Don’t Look Like Anyone I Know: A True Story of Family, Face Blindness, and Forgiveness was a Michigan Notable Book of the Year and Editor’s Choice at The New York Times Book Review. Other publications include Drinking Girls and Their Dresses: Poems; and Spike and Cubby’s Ice Cream Island Adventure, a children’s book. She lives in Saint Petersburg, Florida. Her website is heathersellers.com .

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The Practice of Creative Writing: A Guide for Students Hardcover – January 1, 2013

• Print length 498 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Bedford Books
• Publication date January 1, 2013
• ISBN-10 1457628031
• ISBN-13 978-1457628030
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Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bedford Books (January 1, 2013)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 498 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1457628031
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1457628030
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.4 pounds
• Best Sellers Rank: #4,307,820 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books )

About the author

Heather sellers.

Welcome to my Amazon author page.

The new edition of The Practice of Creative Writing is now out in its fourth edition. Instructors who adopt the book for their courses receive the updated 170-page instructor's manual. I'm incredibly proud of this project. With my terrific team at Macmillan Learning, I've worked on this baby for two years.

In April 2022, my new collection of poems is forthcoming from BOA Editions.

I look forward to hearing from you.

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How to Make Poems: Form and Technique

The introduction to reading and writing poetry is my favorite class to teach. Most students enter the course with fear and apprehension. Understandably so! Poetry is not an easy terrain to navigate. I absolutely love being a guide for newcomers entering the land of poetry for perhaps the first time. Most people are already familiar with the basic moves poetry makes, because they’ve been listening to song lyrics their whole lives. That’s where the course begins, with what we already know about the pleasures of rhythm, sound, pattern, repetition, surprise and story.

In my new textbook, I present a course in poetry for anyone who is interested in learning the basics of how to read a poem, and how to go about building a poem.  This is a fun and friendly book, jam-packed with my 35+ years of experience teaching, reading, and writing poetry.

The Practice of Creative Writing

I wanted to create a textbook that presents students with a friendly, accessible way to approach creativity and writing. Free from lofty literary terms, The Practice of Creative Writing is a practical toolbox for writers at any level.

Seeking to support invention and freedom, I wrote The Practice of Creative Writing so students could learn writing strategies (rather than genres). I love these words from Ocean Vuong, excerpted from The Paris Review interview : "I’m not sure a genre is a destination so much as a way of thinking, a tendency of inquiry. When we think of tables, we think of staying there, of keeping our place cards, our seats. I’m not interested in possession. I want to be freer than that. Maybe I’m being naive, but I understand genres to be as fluid as genders. Our lives are full of restrictions—jobs, bills, time, gravity, all of this impinging on us—but to write is to gift yourself the freedom of choice and possibility. That feels truly precious to me."

I’ve always believed that the principles of good writing apply to every genre and I designed the book to teach those five basic principles—imagery, energy, tension, pattern, and insight.

"I simply don't know of a better introductory creative writing textbook, period." — Jeff Newberry, Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College  

" The Practice of Creative Writing stands out as an inspiring, engaging, and useful text for beginning creative writers. Heather Sellers manages to introduce core concepts and literary techniques with an emphasis on practice that is integral to building a multi-genre course without being overly prescriptive. Instructors can choose from a variety of contemporary literature selections and provide students with the models, writing prompts, and exercises that help them grow as creative writers." — Dr. Kathleen McCoy, Adirondack CC, Queensbury

"This is my fifth year teaching an introduction to creative writing course with The Practice of Creative Writing , and it's simply great. The students love it, and they love the course (and I love teaching it). I pair your book with Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird— and they work so well together. Your book has helped me change over from a traditional literary scholar to a teacher of creative writing. And it's also encouraged me to start writing both poetry and fiction myself." — Dr. John Van Rys, Redeemer University, Canada

Page after Page

I wrote  Page After Page  as an invitation to writing. I was struggling to maintain an artistic life in academia, and also working to create a classroom environment that is generative, positive, thoughtful, lively, and accessible to people from a wide variety of backgrounds.  Short chapters, friendly prompts. Welcome to your writing life.

Chapter after Chapter

Chapter After Chapter  is for writers seeking to create a novel or longer work. I offer lessons and practices that can help an author sustain focus and keep the faith.