What's In Store
Nuts, Bolts and Nerve
by Sandra Dark

If you want to write saleable essays, memoirs, or a column (or are already doing so but want to improve your skills), these books are for you. Even if you aren't interested in any of those forms, you'll find insights that can help you as either a fiction or nonfiction writer.

Courage & Craft: Writing Your Life into Story, by Barbara Abercrombie. New World Library, 2007, 142 pp., (paperback) $14.95.

Okay, Courage & Craft is for beginning writers—as in those who probably have never written at all before. So a professional will find the first thirty pages to be fairly worthless—an egregious amount for a book of only 142 pages. But all of us are beginners at one thing or another, so if you've never written marketable essays, the middle pages are gems.

For instance, I've been toying with an essay idea for several years—ever since (ASJA member) Melba Newsome went out of her way to encourage me to write it—but had no idea how to go about turning it into something saleable. Finally, around page 35 of Courage & Craft, the perfect theme became crystal clear.

You'll gain valuable insights into where to find essay subjects in your life experiences. (I never do writing exercises, so skipped the numerous prompts throughout the book. But I did read the instructions, and found that they triggered new ways of thinking.) There is a nifty list of eight questions you should ask yourself when editing the first draft of your essay. And in addition to her guide to essay writing, Abercrombie guides writers through the process of turning people you know (including yourself) into characters in an "autobiographical novel." It's a little book that's only half useful to a professional—but that half could help get your essays in print.

Fearless Confessions: A Writer's Guide to Memoir, by Sue William Silverman. The University of Georgia Press, 2009, 229 pp., (paperback) $19.95.

While Courage & Craft might be seen as a tasty hors d'oeuvre, Fearless Confessions is the nutritious, appetite-satisfying main course. Silverman (author of Because I Remember Terror; Father, I Remember You; and Love Sick: One Woman's Journey through Sexual Addiction) leans heavily on "confessional memoir." But most of the content is useful for any type of memoir, and even other forms of nonfiction and fiction.

Through insights and exercises, Silverman shows how to interpret your life story into a compelling narrative that will achieve all-important universality. She gets down to such basics as how to find your theme; how to create a plot and the motivation that drives it; what to include and what to leave out; and how to structure and jumpstart your story.

Silverman deals concisely with what is documentable fact and what is subjective memory—and how (or whether) you should try to reconcile the two. And a section called "The Courage to Show This to Your Mother" covers that sticky issue. Several lengthy essays at the end illustrate Silverman's premise that "...writing artfully for an audience requires we make sense of our lives in a way that speaks to others." (One of those essays is about POD publishing—a route that more and more memoirists are taking.) For both would-be and experienced memoirists and essayists, Fearless Confessions is worth your time.

The Art of Column Writing, by Suzette Martinez Standring. Marion Street Press, Inc., 2008, 196 pp., (paperback) $18.95.

If you are a columnist—or just hope to snag such a gig—you won't regret dropping 19 bucks on this book. Humor columnist Standring, a past president of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, draws on its horde of members in putting together a definitive book on the subject—all in 196 pages.

Though grounded in the newspaper experience, The Art of Column Writing is just as applicable for magazine or online columns. You'll pick up valuable insights from both hometown and nationally syndicated columnists, including the likes of Pete Hamill, Art Buchwald, Dave Barry, and Arianna Huffington.

Standring heavily peppers the book with examples and excerpts, sometimes tossing in entire award-winning columns. You'll learn how to develop your own unique voice; how to shake up your style to keep it fresh; ways to launch your theme with an attention-grabbing lead; and—especially important—the many ways to write a memorable ending that'll stick in your reader's mind long after your column finds its way to the birdcage floor. (You'll also learn three things that endings should do.)

This smallish book is chock-full of useful information. (I've had several magazine columns over the years, but still learned a lot.) Want to know how to go about landing a column? The common characteristics of Pulitzer Prize-winning columns? What to do when your muse takes a hike and leaves you staring at a blank computer screen while a column deadline hangs in the balance? How to handle any of a variety of specialty columns? The ethics involved when writing about people or issues? How much you can earn? How to be a blogger or radio columnist? Lots of other neat stuff? Get the book.

ASJA member Sandra Dark is the author of 10 novels.