A review by curiousreader
The Writer's Notebook: Craft Essays from Tin House by Kate Bernheimer, Matthea Harvey, Charles D'Ambrosio, Susan Bell, Steve Almond, Nick Flynn, Stephen Elliott, Marie Howe, Jim Shepard, Dorothy Allison, Chris Offutt, Anna Keesey, Denis Johnson, Aimee Bender, D.A. Powell

3.0

This collection of essays focus on writing but have rather different approaches - some specifically talk about poetry, about Shakespeare, about fairytales and about specific books like The Great Gatsby. Others have more general ideas, theories and advice that could be applied to a wide variety of people and stories I think. I found some of the essays too heavy in quotes and examples - which really took away from my personal connection to what exactly was being said, instead I kept being annoyed at being thrown into so many different stories in one short essay. It's one thing to illustrate a point with a quote - which many did, but in my opinion a few of these essays could've lost some of the quotes to become clearer. "Place" by Dorothy Allison, "When to keep it simple" by Rick Bass, "Making a Scene" by Anna Keesey, "Performing surgery without anaesthesia" by Chris Offut, and "(Mis) Adventures in Poetry" by D. A Powell I found to be very interesting and useful in terms of writing. My favourite essay may have been "Character motivation" by Aimee Bender which I didn't only find useful in terms of writing but also particularly interesting from a readers point of view. All of the essays mentioned I found to be thought provoking in some way or other, and would recommend to anyone wanting to get some pointers for writing - not just writing fiction, some of these I thought could be applied to school related writing as well.