Here are 100 books that Steering the Craft fans have personally recommended if you like
Steering the Craft.
Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
I’m a writer who just published a book I didn’t have any interest in writing. I didn’t like the subject matter, so I had no interest in doing the research to create credible characters and a cohesive plot.
This book had me laughing from the first paragraph.
I had no plan to write novels then. I just wanted to write in a beautiful leather journal a good friend gave me to record my thoughts on my trip to Greece. It was a trip I’d planned with others, one in particular. But when he decided to leave, I went anyway. Alone.
A friend of mine knew the trip would be emotionally and technically difficult. Travelling alone in a non-English-speaking country can be dicey. She hoped that this book would provide relief from the debris of my personal life. And it did.
Experience a modern classic on writing as you've never heard it before. With nearly one million copies of Writing Down the Bones in print, Natalie Goldberg has helped change the way writing is practiced in homes, schools, and workshops across America. Through her heartfelt personal reflections and her ingenious Zen-based exercises, Goldberg makes writing available to you as a tool for personal expression, self-exploration, and healing.
In this enhanced reading of her seminal work, Goldberg offers new commentary about the creative, spiritual, and practical dimensions of writing. Join her as she looks back on her life, sharing the story of…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I am a working artist and a longtime educator. I have been thinking about what makes an artist, how we choose this path, how we keep going when things get challenging, why we are even drawn to creative pursuits for 30+ years. I do not come from a long line of artists, nor did I have access to any working artists when I was a child. I felt like a fish out of water when I decided that this was going to be my life’s pursuit. There were certain books and people that helped me along the way.
I first read this book as an angsty artist in college. It was as if the Universe sent me a gift that I needed precisely when I needed it. Rilke–an older/wiser poet, wrote the 10 letters in the book to a young Franz Kappus–a budding/insecure poet. All artists suffer from insecurity, and Kappus wants to know if his poems are good and what he should do.
We all want to do Important and Good work (with capital I’s and G’s). Rilke gently and masterfully steers Kappus to understand that true art is a process and involves every aspect of an artist’s life, that it is often a lonely endeavor but worth it for so many reasons. I felt as if Rilke was speaking to me–as a loving grandfather–with words of encouragement, but also in truth. Nothing was sugar-coated, but I so related and wanted to be the wise creator that…
Born in 1875, the great German lyric poet Rainer Maria Rilke published his first collection of poems in 1898 and went on to become renowned for his delicate depiction of the workings of the human heart. Drawn by some sympathetic note in his poems, young people often wrote to Rilke with their problems and hopes. From 1903 to 1908 Rilke wrote a series of remarkable responses to a young, would-be poet on poetry and on surviving as a sensitive observer in a harsh world. Those letters, still a fresh source of inspiration and insight, are accompanied here by a chronicle…
I’m an oral historian as well as a writer, so I’ve always been fascinated by how people speak and how they interact with each other through dialogue. I soon realized some of the ways spoken language differs from written language and began exploring those differences. When I started writing, the dialogue came fairly easily, but this was deceptive, as I wasn’t being rigorous enough–I wasn’t making the dialogue really work for the script. So, I’m always trying to get better at that. I’ve had over 60 scripts performed on stage, radio, and screen, but I still gobble up books about speech and dialogue–there is always more to be learned.
I loved the voice of this book–it’s the voice of Stephen King, clever, yes, and a brilliant novelist, of course, but also absolutely down-to-earth. King is a perfectionist, continually going back through his writing to hone it–a useful reminder to all of us not to be satisfied with a first or second draft.
The book shows how, in the best writing, both dialogue and plot arise out of character. And I particularly valued his emphasis on cutting, cutting, cutting–dialogue and everything else. He’s made me do that more than ever!
Twentieth Anniversary Edition with Contributions from Joe Hill and Owen King
ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S TOP 100 NONFICTION BOOKS OF ALL TIME
Immensely helpful and illuminating to any aspiring writer, this special edition of Stephen King’s critically lauded, million-copy bestseller shares the experiences, habits, and convictions that have shaped him and his work.
“Long live the King” hailed Entertainment Weekly upon publication of Stephen King’s On Writing. Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer’s craft, comprising the basic tools of the…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I blame my mother. She took us to the public library every week and let us check out as many books as we could carry. Consequently, reading was a joy rather than a burden. The writing came after I got over my false assumptions about English Lit and Modern Poetry. As a screenwriter, I craft silly stories to make audiences laugh. That’s why I watch movies after an exhausting week. As an author, I gravitate towards non-fiction–trying to reconcile my artistry with my faith. I’ve written about movies, music, video games, technology, and art–with an eye toward lifting our spirits and comforting our aching souls.
As a young man who loved the violent films of Martin Scorsese and the soothing sounds of Gregorian chants, I wanted to reconcile these seemingly contradictory passions.
Madeleine L’Engle offers wise words of encouragement for integrating our faith and our art. While I’d enjoyed her science fiction novels like A Wrinkle in Time, I was surprised by the practical, down-to-earth aspects of Walking on Water. This book slowed me down, allowing child-like wonder to return. She challenged me to develop a daily creative practice because one day off ends up disconnecting us for three.
In this classic book,Madeleine L'Engle addresses the questions, What does it mean to be a Christian artist? and What is the relationship between faith and art? Through L'Engle's beautiful and insightful essay, readers will find themselves called to what the author views as the prime tasks of an artist: to listen, to remain aware, and to respond to creation through one's own art.
People come to songwriting from all different directions. Some have wanted to do this since they were little kids. Some like to make their parents mad. Some are wildly talented but crippled with doubt. All I can say is that no matter which way you’re facing, I think I can help you. I say this because I’ve been teaching college-level songwriting for years now, and every semester I have students who want to meet with me for office hours. They’re all repeat customers and I’ve noticed that many of them ask repeat questions. The point of my book, Music, Lyrics, and Life, is to try to address those repeat questions because chances are good that you have them, too.
Do not come to this book in search of warm hugs about the beauty of the process. True to the title, Klinkenborg (best name ever?) offsets each of his sentences like an epic poem in verse. The epic he describes is how epically bad your writing is, and—hopefully—how to improve. He returns to the word "notice" over and over, and that's really it. You're blowing sentences by not noticing what the sentence itself is doing. You're over-emphasizing "meaning" at the expense of the vehicle that delivers it. I sense there's a kind man in there, somewhere, who's working a side of the street he feels has been neglected by years of misguided education. But here, he's dedicated to the larger cause of clean, clear sentences. Not hugs.
An indispensable and distinctive book that will help anyone who wants to write, write better, or have a clearer understanding of what it means for them to be writing, from widely admired writer and teacher Verlyn Klinkenborg.
Klinkenborg believes that most of our received wisdom about how writing works is not only wrong but an obstacle to our ability to write. In Several Short Sentences About Writing, he sets out to help us unlearn that “wisdom”—about genius, about creativity, about writer’s block, topic sentences, and outline—and understand that writing is just as much about thinking, noticing, and learning what it…
My name is Bri Bruce, writing as B. L. Bruce, and am an award-winning poet and Pushcart prize nominee from California. Over the last decade and a half, my work has appeared in dozens of literary publications. I am the author of four books and Editor-in-Chief of nature-centric magazineHumana Obscura. I was raised with a wildlife biologist/avid gardener for a mother and a forestry major/backpacker/fisherman as a father. Both my parents instilled in me at a young age a love of nature. A lifetime spent outdoors inspires my work—so much so that I’ve been called a “poetic naturalist” and the “heiress of Mary Oliver.”
No Other Life combines three of Gary Young’s books into one volume. There is such unique style and quiet beauty to Young’s work. I am truly inspired by it. He has a knack for capturing the extraordinary in the mundane in brief but deep prose poems that grip the soul.
Young was one of my professors in college and was a driving force for why I pursued a creative writing degree and chose to continue to write after graduating. His work will always hold a special place in my nature-loving creative heart.
No Other Life gathers in a single volume two earlier books by Gary Young, Days and the award-winning Braver Deeds, with the final book in his trilogy, If He Had. Utilizing a radically brief prose poem that in its spare lucidity leaves after images burned into the readers imagination, Young weaves a pattern of compelling and often harrowing correspondences that Ethan Paquin described in Quarterly West as an exploration of thresholds, of levels of human endurance. Although every poem stands as an independent utterance, each book suggests a discrete poetic unit, and the entire trilogy can be read as a…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
Some of my favorite things in life are talking about story, learning about story, reading story, and writing story. I have been blessed to be invited to teach and speak about kissing books all over the United States and Canada.
The original Save the Cat by Blake Snyder was written for screenplays but captured the imagination of all kinds of writers, myself included. But often it was difficult to translate to novel format. Jessica Brody’s book is an excellent adaptation of Snyder’s foundation for book people.
The story structure methodology uses the same 15 beats (plot points) as the screenplay version. I love that Brody uses book examples as even most books about writing books tend to use movie examples. I think some authors worry about following story structure too closely, but I have always felt thinking analytically about story can only improve your writing. It’s only formulaic if you write it that way.
The houses on your block probably all have walls, roofs, foundations, floors, and plumbing…but they don’t all look the same, even on the outside. Once you get inside—all bets are off, right? But they all need…
The first novel-writing guide from the best-selling Save the Cat! story-structure series, which reveals the 15 essential plot points needed to make any novel a success.
Novelist Jessica Brody presents a comprehensive story-structure guide for novelists that applies the famed Save the Cat! screenwriting methodology to the world of novel writing. Revealing the 15 "beats" (plot points) that comprise a successful story--from the opening image to the finale--this book lays out the Ten Story Genres (Monster in the House; Whydunit; Dude with a Problem) alongside quirky, original insights (Save the Cat; Shard of Glass) to help novelists craft a plot…
Why I chose to write about cold climates: I spent nearly seven years living in the North of Norway in the Sámi reindeer herding village called Guovdageaidnu, or Kautokeino in Norwegian. I cherish my time in that part of the world.
I had never been to Greenland when I first read Gretal Erlich’s book, and I knew very little about this mysterious continent. What I loved most about Erlich’s writing is that she really takes readers on a journey, introducing us to the people she meets in her travels, which are as fascinating as her singular way of describing the landscape, which is like no other place on earth.
Many years later, I travelled to Greenland and appreciated the accuracy of her descriptions firsthand.
For the last decade, Gretel Ehrlich has been obsessed by an island, a terrain, a culture, and the treacherous beauty of a world that is defined by ice. In This Cold Heaven she combines the story of her travels with history and cultural anthropology to reveal a Greenland that few of us could otherwise imagine.
Ehrlich unlocks the secrets of this severe land and those who live there; a hardy people who still travel by dogsled and kayak and prefer the mystical four months a year of endless darkness to the gentler summers without night. She discovers the twenty-three words…
I’m an artist who likes to write, but I’ve never been interested in classic superhero or pulp graphic novels. Early in my career, the word “comics” felt like an insult—it's not “real art,” right? Too childish! While that instinct was definitely wrong, I found a (small) world of experimental, abstract, genre-breaking graphic novels that combine art and writing in a wholly unique way. This is a list of some of my recent favorites that have inspired my drawing and writing practice, and will hopefully inspire you.
This is an excellent textbook to get readers and comic makers of all experience levels to loosen up, think deeply and personally, and make better, more confident comics. It’s warm but practical, smart but approachable, deep but unpretentious. This is a comics veteran generously sharing both her knowledge of comics and teaching, as well as her own methods for drawing, brainstorming, and writing. It’s an incredible resource and one I often find myself quoting and recommending to my own students.
Hello students, meet Professor Skeletor. Be on time, don t miss class, and turn off your phones. No time for introductions, we start drawing right away. The goal is more rock, less talk, and we communicate only through images. For more than five years the cartoonist Lynda Barry has been an associate professor in the University of Wisconsin Madison art department and at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, teaching students from all majors, both graduate and undergraduate, how to make comics, how to be creative, how to not think. There is no academic lecture in this classroom. Doodling is enthusiastically…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
The future is the one thing in which we are all invested. In order to shape the future we must be able to visualise possibilities, prepare for consequences, and take action. My job is to help companies, charities, and governments to see and prepare for the future. But so many of the lessons that I find myself trying to teach to leaders have their parallels in our personal and working lives - including mine. In a time of great uncertainty about the future, we all must take time out to picture where we’re going, make choices about our direction, and invest in ourselves to achieve our dreams.
When examining the future, you’re always dealing with lots of different sources of information.
Trying to understand how they align, interact, and compete is complex. It doesn’t matter whether you’re working as a futurist, trying to plot out a new business plan, or just thinking about your personal life.
One thing that has always helped me is writing. Getting it down on paper is a powerful way to structure your thoughts, to share them, and kick off collaboration.
If you want help using writing to explore your mind and your world, then this is the book. It’s in many ways quite simple, but it’s no less powerful than that.
Everything we're learning about how we function best as humans in the digital age is pointing towards one of our oldest technologies: the pen and the page.
Exploratory writing - writing for ourselves, not for others, writing when we don't know exactly what it is we want to say - is one of the most powerful and lightweight thinking tools we have at our disposal. It's also been, until now, one of the most overlooked.
