Letters to a Young Writer
From the National Book Award-winning, Booker Prize-longlisted author of Let the Great World Spin and Transatlantic comes a passionate and practical book of advice, as essential for budding writers as Stephen King’s On Writing
'A warm, open-hearted paean to the joys of writing' Sunday Times
'Excellent ... cannot fail as a pick-me-up' Observer
I hope there is something here for any young writer – or any older writer, for that matter – who happens to be looking for a teacher to come along, a teacher who, in the end, can really teach nothing at all but fire.
From the critically acclaimed Colum McCann, author of the National Book Award winner Let the Great World Spin, comes a paean to the power of language, and a direct address to the artistic, professional and philosophical concerns that challenge and sometimes torment an author.
Comprising fifty-two short prose pieces, Letters to a Young Writer ranges from practical matters of authorship, such as finding an agent, the pros and cons of creative writing degrees and handling bad reviews, through to the more joyous and celebratory, as McCann elucidates the pleasures to be found in truthful writing, for: ‘the best writing makes us glad that we are – however briefly – alive.’
Emphatic and empathetic, pragmatic and profound, this is an essential companion to any author’s journey – and a deeply personal work from one of our greatest literary voices.
Colum McCann is the author of six novels and three collections of stories. His most recent novel, TransAtlantic, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2013, and his previous novel, Let the Great World Spin, won the National Book Award, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and was a New York Times bestseller. His most recent short story collection, Thirteen Ways of Looking, includes the story ‘What Time is it Now, Where You Are?’ which was shortlisted for the 2016 Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award. His work has been published in forty languages and has received many international honours, including a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, election to the Irish arts academy and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the 2010 Best Foreign Novel Award in China and an Oscar nomination. He is the co-founder of the non-profit global story exchange organisation, Narrative 4, and he teaches at the MFA program in Hunter College. He lives in New York.
colummccann.com