Shapiro (
Devotion; Black & White) has created a lovely little book that contains gems about the writing process to capture a reader's attention. Some sections will be most helpful to a beginning writer, or even one who has not yet begun, while other parts will inform or comfort experienced writers, providing a bond of camaraderie in an all too often solitary pursuit. Shapiro arranges the book into "Beginnings," "Middles," and "Ends" and intersperses the illumination of the writing life that she discusses with the story of her own journey and that of her parents. With this show and tell, she writes a memoir while producing a guide to writing. She covers some of the same ground as earlier works on the discipline but includes modern advice and informs it with her own experience.
VERDICT This is a fine addition to the pantheon of writing life guides that includes Brenda Ueland's If You Want To Write, Annie Dillard's The Writing Life, and Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird. [See Prepub Alert, 4/29/13.]
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