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From bestselling and award-winning author and professor Elizabeth McCracken comes an irresistible look at the art of writing.
Writing can feel like an endless series of decisions. How does one face the blank page? Move a character around a room? Deal with time? Undertake revision? The good and bad news is that in fiction writing, there are no definitive answers to such questions: writers must come up with their own. Elizabeth McCracken, author of bestselling novels, National Book Award long-listed story collections, and a highly praised memoir, has been teaching for more than thirty-five years, guiding her many students through their own answers. In A Long Game, she shares insights gleaned along the way, offering practical tips and incisive thoughts about her own work as an artist. "Writing is a long game," she notes. "What matters is that you learn to get work done in the way that is possible for you, through consistency or panic. Through self-recrimination or self-forgiveness: every life needs both."
As much a book about the life of a working artist as it is a guide to thinking about fiction, A Long Game is a revelatory and indispensable resource for any writer.
"McCracken's deep empathy for others is evident on every page. As much a book of philosophy as a treatise on writing, this work could even bear the subtitle Notes on Life...A charming book that will have great appeal not only for aspiring writers but for all lovers of fiction and anyone interested in the complicated art of being human." —Library Journal (starred review)
"A witty, generous guide." —Kirkus Reviews
"Elizabeth McCracken was my teacher, and it's a joy to know that now more people will have access to her brilliance through A Long Game. The book is intellectually rigorous with its philosophical and artistic deliberations on the art of fiction writing, and it is also full of tender humor, understanding, and respect for writers at any stage of their careers. It's a treasure box for any teacher of creative writing, a guidebook for any fiction writer, and a problem-solving and cheering companion that makes writing a less lonely business." —Yiyun Li, author of Things in Nature Merely Grow
"A Long Game is the most generous, idiosyncratic, useful, and companionable book on writing I've ever read. It's basically a portable Elizabeth McCracken. How did we get so lucky?" —Antoine Wilson, author of Mouth to Mouth
This information about A Long Game was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Larry D. Moore CC BY-SA 4.0
Elizabeth McCracken is the author of nine books: Here's Your Hat What's Your Hurry, The Giant's House, Niagara Falls All Over Again, An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, Thunderstruck & Other Stories, Bowlaway, The Souvenir Museum, The Hero of This Book, and the forthcoming A Long Game: Notes on Writing Fiction. She's received grants and fellowships from United States Artists, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Liguria Study Center, the American Academy in Berlin, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Her stories have won three Pushcart Prizes, two National Magazine Awards, and have appeared in five editions of The Best American Short Stories. She has taught fiction writing off and on (mostly ...
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