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meganmilks's review against another edition
4.0
I've been using this as a textbook in my Advanced Writing class. The exercises are phenomenal for all levels of writing, and my students have really done some terrific things with them. The chapter content is a bit too high on aesthetics for most, even advanced undergrads -- the book is better suited for graduate writing students, or for students on the verge of entering or applying for an MFA program (there's a chapter devoted to the institutionalization of writing geared particularly towards grad or pre-grad students).
I admit to finding some of the book's propagandistic rhetoric trumpeting innovative writing irritating, and its reification of the innovative/conventional dichotomy rather tiresome (though I have to admit relying lazily on it myself ALL THE TIME). However, Olsen is admirably transparent about his aesthetic leanings -- unusual for craft books, which tend to be staunchly realist without acknowledging it, and likewise without acknowledging that realist fiction is only one available mode of many. And all this, of course, raises provocative questions that, at least in my experience, generate rich, if heated, classroom debate.
I admit to finding some of the book's propagandistic rhetoric trumpeting innovative writing irritating, and its reification of the innovative/conventional dichotomy rather tiresome (though I have to admit relying lazily on it myself ALL THE TIME). However, Olsen is admirably transparent about his aesthetic leanings -- unusual for craft books, which tend to be staunchly realist without acknowledging it, and likewise without acknowledging that realist fiction is only one available mode of many. And all this, of course, raises provocative questions that, at least in my experience, generate rich, if heated, classroom debate.
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