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23 Books for Teaching Writing

Kristin Halverson
August 13, 2021
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When it comes to teaching writing, I didn’t learn a whole lot in my teacher prep program. It is a skill I have honed over time. I was also fortunate enough to observe some master teachers who excel at their craft and learn from them.

Throughout the years, I’ve amassed a collection of mentor texts for teaching writing – books that I love, the kids love, and also perfectly match the skills I want to teach. Whenever I discover a new picture book, I love to share it with others.

best creative writing books for teachers

So… here’s my list of 23 books for teaching writing!

General writing, 1 – one day, the end: short, very short, shorter-than-ever stories by rebecca kai dotlich.

Theme: Adding Details

I absolutely adore this story and it is one of my favorite books for teaching writing. I play it up like I have the BEST new book for the students to hear – they’re going to loooove this story. It is so in-depth and there is so much going on in each of the stories – they’ll never believe it is all in one book. And then I start reading. And they crack up because they know how ridiculous the stories sound when they have few to no details. A must-read for all primary grades!

Writing Book 2 – Ralph Tells a Story by Abby Hanlon

Theme: Finding Inspiration

Secondary Skill: Speech Bubbles/Dialogue

Ralph can’t write a story because nothing ever happens to him…or so he thinks. Ralph avoids writing like the plague because he thinks he has nothing to say, until one day, his classmates help him discover that maybe he does have stories to tell.

3 – A Squiggly Story by Andrew Larsen

Theme: How To Start Writing/Adding Details (for early writers)

How do you write a story when you don’t know any words, only letters? The little boy in this story discovers the answer from his sister. As she prompts him to add details and move the story along, the little boy realizes that even he can write a story. This is great for emergent writers and has an emphasis on oral storytelling from the few symbols that the boy puts on paper. I love how the teacher and classmates help the little boy continue to develop his story by suggesting ideas – just like we do at school!

4 – The Best Story by Eileen Spinelli

Theme: Writing from the Heart

This is one of the first books I get out each year from my set of books for teaching writing. I follow it up with a heart map graphic organizer. The main character in this book enters a contest at the library, trying to win for having the best story. The problem is, she keeps getting conflicting information on what makes ‘the best story’ from her family. As she tries to add all these elements to her story, she discovers that the best story is the one that is your own.

Writing Book 5 – Rocket Writes a Story by Tad Hills

Theme: Finding Inspiration/The Magic of Words

Rocket wants to write his very own story. He starts by collecting words. Then, he decides to use his words to write a story but doesn’t know what to write. As Rocket is guided by the little yellow bird, he slowly develops his story, which he shares with Owl, his newly discovered and eventual friend.

6 – Author: A True Story by Helen Lester

Theme: The Writing Process/Finding Inspiration

The author tells the story of her life – how she became a writer. I love how she explains the process of becoming a published author and how it takes persistence and practice (as everything does to be good at it!) and she experiences the same things that our students do as they are writing. It demystifies the process of becoming an author, which seems so elusive to children, when they are, in fact, authors themselves!

Writing Book 7 – Little Red Writing by Joan Holub

Theme: Writing, Words (Grammar), and the Mechanics of a Story

Little Red Writing’s teacher (Mrs. 2 at pencil school) tells the students they will be writing a story. While she gives the basic elements of a story, Little Red sets off to write her story. She encounters a variety of situations that might try to deter her from sticking to the plot – including an adjective forest but also has other problems arise such as a run-on sentence with the help of conjunction glue and all capitals and large punctuation with adverbs. As the author introduces each element, she includes it in the story of Little Red Writing in a comical way. There’s a lot going on with this story, but you can take it one step at a time if you want.

Writing Book 8 – The Word Collector by Peter H. Reynolds

Theme: The Magic of Words

Secondary Theme: Helping Others

Anything Peter H. Reynolds writes is gold in my opinion. This is one of my favorite books for teaching writing. Jerome (the main character) collects words in this book. He drops his collection one day and the words combine in ways he had never thought possible. As Jerome begins to share his words with others, he learns that you never know what words will help someone’s day be a little bit brighter. This is a must-read!

9 – Max’s Words by Kate Banks

Theme: The Magic of Words/Creating Descriptive Sentences

Max wants to be like his brothers who each collect things, so he decides to collect words. His collection grows and grows and Max realizes that while his brothers may have large collections, their collections aren’t worth much – just money, but he can create incredible sentences and stories. The illustrations in this one are fantastic!

Writing Book 10 – What Do Authors Do? by Eileen Christelow

Theme: The Writing Process

The author based this book on questions children ask her as she does presentations around the country. It is one of a handful of books I’ve got on this list of books for teaching writing that shows the entire process – idea through publishing – for how a book is made (technically two books – a picture book and a chapter book). This book has comic-book style illustrations and has just the right touch of fun and whimsy added to the details of writing.

Writing Book 11 – The Plot Chickens by Mary Jane Auch

If you like puns, you’ll love this book. It is FULL of them as Henrietta decides to write her own book. She gets advice about ‘hatching a plot,’ creating suspense, having the main character solve their problem, and using the five senses to describe in vivid detail for the reader. Not only does Henrietta write her own book, but she also self-publishes after she is turned down so the reader sees the publishing process as well!

12 – How This Book Was Made by Mac Barnett

Mac Barnett is another favorite author and does a fabulous job with this piece – especially when you’re looking for books to teach writing. Barnett relays the story of how a book is written and published – with a few interesting side steps along the way from a tiger and pirates. I use this when I introduce sharing as a part of the writing process (in particular) because the book ends with the idea that a book isn’t complete until it has a reader.

13 – A Perfectly Messed Up Story by Patrick McDonnell

Theme: Your Story (and Life) Aren’t Always Perfect

This story starts out perfectly mundane until a drop of PB and J falls on the page…and the story must adjust. With continued unexpected difficulties from an invisible, perceived reader who isn’t taking very good care of the book, the character and story adjust. This is a great fit for teaching kids that life isn’t always perfect – and we can adjust to continue on.

Writing Book 14 – The Panda Problem by Deborah Underwood

Theme: Fiction Story Elements

15 – Stuck by Oliver Jeffers

Theme: Strategies for Getting Unstuck

Secondary Theme: Perseverance, Creativity

Writers get stuck. It happens to everyone. But what do you do when you are stuck? Oliver Jeffers is one of my favorite authors and I love how this book (a pretty quick read) can lead into a conversation of what authors should do when they get stuck. We create an anchor chart and leave it up for reference as long as it is needed!

16 – Chalk by Bill Thomson, I Walk With Vanessa by Kerascoët, or Any Other Wordless Picture Book

Theme: Illustrations Tell a Story

Illustrations are an important part (if not a critical part, depending on the book) of any picture book. By showing my students one or a few wordless picture books and discussing how we can ‘read’ the story through all the amazing illustrations, they understand that their illustrations are just as important and should a) match the story, b) be detailed, and c) help the reader understand what is going on.

Writing Book 17 – Fancy Nancy by Jane O’Connor

Theme: Writers Edit and Revise

Students love to be fancy – so I use Fancy Nancy to encourage them to make their writing ‘fancy’ after the draft! We don’t always do this, but when we take a piece through the entire writing process, this is a great text to refer to for getting them to edit and revise their work.

Genre-Specific Writing

18 – jabari jumps by gaia cornwall.

Theme: Perseverance, Overcoming Your Fears

Jabari is ready to jump off the high dive – he has done everything he needs to do to be ready. But when the time arrives, he isn’t quite sure, although he won’t admit that. He does his warm-up stretches and lets the other kids go first, but eventually, makes the climb up the ladder and takes his dad’s advice to reach his goal.

Potential Writing Prompts:

Jabari gets nervous to jump off the high dive. Everyone gets nervous. Think of a time you were nervous and write about what made you nervous and how you calmed down.
Jumping off the high dive for the first time can be scary. Think of a time you did something that scared you. How did you feel when you did the thing that was scary before you did it?
Jabari perseveres in the story – he doesn’t give up on his goal of jumping off the high dive. Write about a time you persevered – a time when you overcame obstacles to achieve a goal.
Jabari’s dad supports him in achieving his goal. Think of someone who supports you in achieving your goals. Write about them, what qualities they exhibit that make them so supportive, a time when they supported you, and how they did it.

19 – A Hat for Mrs. Goldman by Michelle Edwards

Theme: Compassion

Mrs. Goldman knits hats for everyone, with the help of Sophia, who makes the pom-poms. Mrs. Goldman is too busy taking care of everyone else though and doesn’t have a hat for herself so Sophia decides to knit her one. She tries and tries, but the hat is full of mistakes. Sophia comes up with a creative solution to her problem to make a one-of-a-kind hat for Mrs. Goldman.

Mrs. Goldman shows compassion for others by knitting them hats. How do you show compassion for others? Write about a time you showed someone or something compassion.
Sophia is a child, but notices a need in her neighbor and shows her compassion by knitting her a hat. What is something that your class could do to show compassion? Think about where there might be a need in your community and write about how you could help!
Sophia’s hat is full of holes, but she comes up with a creative solution to the problem. Think about a time you solved a problem. Write about the problem and how you solved it.

Argumentative:

Writing book 20 – can i be your dog by troy cummings.

Theme: Compassion, Empathy

Arfy is a homeless mutt living in a box in the alley – he needs a home. So, he writes a series of letters to all the residents of Butternut Street (starting with the nicest looking house and ending with the one that is kind of scary looking, but he is so desperate he would take anything), and one by one they turn him down. Just when he thinks all hope is lost, a solution presents itself. I cried the first time I read this one – it is a winner in my book!

Arfy gets many rejection letters, but he keeps trying to find a loving home and family because it is so important to him. Why is it important to not give up when something is very important to us? Write about this and share a time when something was very important to you.
Think about something you want to change at home. Write a persuasive letter to your adults and convince them to make the change.
Write a letter to your teacher about something you would like to change about your classroom. Think about how you could best persuade him/her.
Consider your community. How could it be a better place for everyone? Write a letter to your town board, city officials, mayor, or other people in charge of your community. Convince them to make the change.

21 – A Pet for Petunia by Paul Schmid

Petunia wants a pet – and has to convince her family to let her get one. The pet that Petunia wants though? A little less than conventional. Petunia ends up loving the animals that others may not like (even remotely).

Possible Writing Prompts:

Petunia tries to convince her parents to let her get a pet skunk. Make a list of reasons your adults should let you get the pet you want.
Petunia changes her mind about have a skunk for a pet when she learns how much they smell. Think of a time when you changed your mind about something. What was it? What made you change your mind?
Petunia sees a porcupine at the end of the book. Write a prediction for what you think will happen next with Petunia. Give evidence to support your prediction.

Informative:

Writing book 22 – facts vs. opinions vs. robots by michael rex.

Theme: All About Facts and Opinions

Secondary Theme: Getting Along with Others

In a playful, engaging, and interactive manner, the author takes the reader through the differences between facts and opinions. There are questions asked of the reader to discern between fact and opinion and the author incorporates the theme of getting along with others, even when our opinions differ.

Select the topic of your choice. Make a list of facts about the topic and a list of opinions about the topic.
Write some facts and opinions about your teacher.
Think of an opinion you agree or disagree with. Write why you agree/disagree with that opinion.
Make a modified t-chart with you on the left and your friend on the right. Write a fact about yourself and a fact about your friend. Then, write an opinion about yourself and an opinion about your friend. Exchange papers with your friend and add a fact and opinion to each column on their paper while they add to yours.

23 – Any of the National Geographic Early Readers (like Sea Otters , Planets , or Pyramids )

Theme: All About (Topic)

National Geographic does a top-notch job with books for kids (just as they do for adults!). The photographs and content are super engaging and give just the right amount of content information on a topic. These books are a hot item in my classroom library – so much so that I’ve had to get multiple copies of some!

Use the topic from your book and write a brochure or book of your own ‘All About (Topic).”
Create a “Did You Know?” poster of things you learned on your book’s topic.
Create a 3D model of your book’s topic. Write an informational description of the topic, as if your piece were to be displayed at a museum.
Write a newspaper or magazine article on your topic.
Make a list of questions you still have about your topic after reading. (Then, see if you can find the answers!)

What are the books for teaching writing that you treasure? Have you used any of those listed above? Share your favorites below! I always find that linking these books with targeted Writing Mini-Lessons really helps cement the concepts for my students. It also greatly improves the content of their writing and allows each one of them to develop their own unique voice. ?

WRITTEN BY: KRISTIN HALVERSON, NBCT

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The 20+ Best Books on Creative Writing

If you’ve ever wondered, “How do I write a book?”, “How do I write a short story?”, or “How do I write a poem?” you’re not alone. I’m halfway done my MFA program at Vermont College of Fine Arts , and I ask myself these questions a lot, too, though I’m noticing that by now I feel more comfortable with the answers that fit my personal craft. Fortunately, you don’t need to be a Master’s of Fine Arts in Writing candidate, or even a college graduate, in order to soak up the great Wisdom of Words, as I like to call it. Another word for it is craft . That’s because there are so many great books out there on writing craft. In this post, I’ll guide you through 20+ of the most essential books on creative writing. These essential books for writers will teach you what you need to know to write riveting stories and emotionally resonant books—and to sell them.

I just also want to put in a quick plug for my post with the word count of 175 favorite novels . This resource is helpful for any writer.

Now, with that done… Let’s get to it!

What Made the List of Essential Books for Writers—and What Didn’t

So what made the list? And what didn’t?

Unique to this list, these are all books that I have personally used in my journey as a creative and commercial writer.

That journey started when I was 15 and extended through majoring in English and Creative Writing as an undergrad at UPenn through becoming a freelance writer in 2014, starting this book blog, pursuing my MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Vermont College of Fine Arts , and publishing some fiction and nonfiction books myself . My point here is not to boast, just to explain that these books have all helped me better understand and apply the craft, discipline, and business of writing over the course of more than half my life as I’ve walked the path to become a full-time writer. Your mileage my vary , but each of these books have contributed to my growth as a writer in some way. I’m not endorsing books I’ve never read or reviewed. This list comes from my heart (and pen!).

Most of these books are geared towards fiction writers, not poetry or nonfiction writers

It’s true that I’m only one human and can only write so much in one post. Originally, I wanted this list to be more than 25 books on writing. Yes, 25 books! But it’s just not possible to manage that in a single post. What I’ll do is publish a follow-up article with even more books for writers. Stay tuned!

The most commonly recommended books on writing are left out.

Why? Because they’re everywhere! I’m aiming for under-the-radar books on writing, ones that aren’t highlighted often enough. You’ll notice that many of these books are self-published because I wanted to give voice to indie authors.

But I did want to include a brief write-up of these books… and, well, you’ve probably heard of them, but here are 7 of the most recommended books on writing:

The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron – With her guided practice on how to rejuvenate your art over the course of 16 weeks, Cameron has fashioned an enduring classic about living and breathing your craft (for artists as well as writers). This book is perhaps best known for popularizing the morning pages method.

The Art of Fiction by John Gardner – If you want to better understand how fiction works, John Gardner will be your guide in this timeless book.

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott – A beloved writing book on process, craft, and overcoming stumbling blocks (both existential and material).

On Writing by Stephen King – A must-read hybrid memoir-craft book on the writer mythos and reality for every writer.

Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose – A core writing book that teaches you how to read with a writer’s eye and unlock the ability to recognize and analyze craft for yourself.

Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin – Many writers consider this to be their bible on craft and storytelling.

Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg – A favorite of many writers, this book takes an almost spiritual approach to the art, craft, and experience of writing.

I’m aiming for under-the-radar books on writing on my list.

These books are all in print.

Over the years, I’ve picked up several awesome books on creative writing from used bookstores. Oh, how I wish I could recommend these! But many of them are out of print. The books on this list are all available new either as eBooks, hardcovers, or paperbacks. I guess this is the right time for my Affiliate Link disclaimer:

This article contains affiliate links, which means I might get a small portion of your purchase. For more on my affiliate link policy, check out my official Affiliate Link Disclaimer .

You’ll notice a lot of the books focus on the business of writing.

Too often, money is a subject that writers won’t talk about. I want to be upfront about the business of writing and making a living as a writer (or not ) with these books. It’s my goal to get every writer, even poets!, to look at writing not just from a craft perspective, but from a commercial POV, too.

And now on to the books!

Part i: the best books on writing craft, the anatomy of story by john truby.

For you if: You want to develop an instinctive skill at understanding the contours of storytelling .

All I want to do as a writer, my MO, is tell good stories well. It took me so long to understand that what really matters to me is good storytelling. That’s it—that’s the essence of what we do as writers… tell good stories well. And in The Anatomy of Story , legendary screenwriting teacher John Truby takes you through story theory. This book is packed with movie references to illustrate the core beat points in story, and many of these example films are actually literary adaptations, making this a crossover craft book for fiction writers and screenwriters alike.

How to read it: Purchase The Anatomy of Story on Amazon and add it on Goodreads

The art of memoir by mary karr.

For you if: You’re writing a memoir book or personal essays .

Nobody is a better person to teach memoir writing than Mary Karr, whose memoirs The Liar’s Club and Lit are considered classics of the genre. In The Art of Memoir , Karr delivers a master class on memoir writing, adapted from her experience as a writer and a professor in Syracuse’s prestigious MFA program. What I love about this book as an aspiring memoirist is Karr’s approach, which blends practical, actionable advice with more bigger-picture concepts on things like truth vs. fact in memoir storytelling. Like I said in the intro to this list, I didn’t include many nonfiction and poetry books on this list, but I knew I had to make an exception for The Art of Memoir .

How to read it: Purchase The Art of Memoir on Amazon and add it on Goodreads

The emotional craft of fiction by donald maass.

For you if: Plot isn’t your problem, it’s character .

From literary agent Donald Maass, The Emotional Craft of Fiction gives you the skill set you need to master emotionally engaging fiction. Maass’s technique is to show you how readers get pulled into the most resonant, engaging, and unforgettable stories: by going through an emotional journey nimbly crafted by the author. The Emotional Craft of Fiction is a must-have work of craft to balance more plot-driven craft books.

How to read it: Purchase the The Emotional Craft of Fiction on Amazon and add it on Goodreads

How to Write Using the Snowflake Method by Randy Ingermanson

For you if: You need a quick-and-dirty plotting technique that’s easy to memorize .

I first heard of the “Snowflake Method” in the National Novel Writing Month forums (which, by the way, are excellent places for finding writing craft worksheets, book recommendations, and online resources). In How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method , the Snowflake Method is introduced by its creator. This quick yet thorough plotting and outlining structure is humble and easy to master. If you don’t have time to read a bunch of books on outlining and the hundreds of pages that would require, check out How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method for a quick, 235-page read.

How to read it: Purchase How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method on Amazon and add it on Goodreads

Meander, spiral, explode: design and pattern in narrative by jane alison.

For you if: You want to do a deep dive understanding of the core theory of story, a.k.a. narrative.

A most unconventional writing craft book, Meander, Spiral, Explode offers a theory of narrative (story) as recognizable patterns. According to author Jane Alison, there are three main narrative narratives in writing: meandering, spiraling, and exploding. This cerebral book (chock full of examples!) is equal parts seminar on literary theory as it is craft, and it will make you see and understand storytelling better than maybe any book on this list.

How to read it: Purchase Meander, Spiral, Explode on Amazon and add it on Goodreads

The modern library writer’s workshop by stephen koch.

For you if: You’re wondering what it means to be the writer you want to become .

This is one of the earliest creative writing books I ever bought and it remains among the best I’ve read. Why? Reading The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop echoes the kind of mind-body-spirit approach you need to take to writing. The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop doesn’t teach you the nuts and bolts of writing as much as it teaches you how to envision the machine. Koch zooms out to big picture stuff as much as zeroes in on the little details. This is an outstanding book about getting into the mindset of being a writer, not just in a commercial sense, but as your passion and identity. It’s as close as you’ll get to the feel of an MFA in Fiction education.

How to read it: Purchase The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop on Amazon and add it on Goodreads

Romancing the beat by gwen hayes.

For you if: You write or edit the romance genre and want a trusted plotting strategy to craft the perfect love story .

If you’re writing romance, you have to get Gwen Hayes’s Romancing the Beat . This book breaks down the plot points or “beats” you want to hit when you’re crafting your romance novel. When I worked as a romance novel outliner (yes, a real job), our team used Romancing the Beat as its bible; every outline was structured around Hayes’s formula. For romance writers (like myself) I cannot endorse it any higher.

How to read it: Purchase Romancing the Beat on Amazon and add it on Goodreads

Save the cat writes a novel by jessica brody.

For you if: You have big ideas for a plot but need to work on the smaller moments that propel stories .

Jessica Brody’s Save the Cat! Writes a Novel adapts Blake Snyder’s bestselling screenwriting book Save the Cat! into story craft for writing novels. Brody reworks the Save the Cat! methodology in actionable, point-by-point stages of story that are each explained with countless relevant examples. If you want to focus your efforts on plot, Save the Cat! Writes a Novel is an excellent place to go to start learning the ins and outs of what makes a good story.

How to read it: Purchase Save the Cat! Writes a Novel on Amazon and add it on Goodreads

Story genius by lisa cron.

For you if: You’re a pantser and are terrified at outlining yet also realize you might have a “plot problem .”

More than any other book, Lisa Cron’s Story Genius will get you where you need to go for writing amazing stories. Story Genius helps you look at plotting differently, starting from a point of characterization in which our protagonists have a clearly defined need and misbelief that play off each other and move the story forward from an emotional interior and action exterior standpoint. For many of my fellow MFA students—and myself— Story Genius is the missing link book for marrying plot and character so you innately understand the contours of good story.

How to read it: Purchase Story Genius on Amazon and add it on Goodreads

Wonderbook: the illustrated guide to creating imaginative fiction by jeff vandermeer.

For you if: You’re writing in a speculative fiction genre—like science fiction, fantasy, or horror—or are trying to better understand those genres.

Jeff VanderMeer’s Wonderbook is a dazzling gem of a book and a can’t-miss-it writing book for sci-fi, fantasy, and horror writers. This book will teach you all the skills you need to craft speculative fiction, like world-building, with micro-lessons and close-reads of excellent works in these genres. Wonderbook is also one to linger over, with lavish illustrations and every inch and corner crammed with craft talk for writing imaginative fiction (sometimes called speculative fiction). And who better to guide you through this than Jeff VanderMeer, author of the popular Southern Reach Trilogy, which kicks off with Annihilation , which was adapted into a feature film.

How to read it: Purchase Wonderbook on Amazon and add it on Goodreads

Writing picture books by ann whitford paul.

For you if: You’re looking to write picture books and/or understand how they work .

This book is the only one you need to learn how to write and sell picture books. As an MFA student studying children’s literature, I’ve consulted with this book several times as I’ve dipped my toes into writing picture books, a form I considered scary and intimidating until reading this book. Writing Picture Books should be on the shelf of any writer of children’s literature. a.k.a. “kid lit.”

How to read it: Purchase Writing Picture Books on Amazon and add it on Goodreads

Writing with emotion, conflict, and tension by cheryl st. john.

For you if: You need to work on the conflict, tension, and suspense that keep readers turning pages and your story going forward .

Mmm, conflict. As I said earlier, it’s the element of fiction writing that makes a story interesting and a key aspect of characterization that is underrated. In Writing with Emotion, Tension, and Conflict , bestselling romance author Cheryl St. John offers a masterclass on the delicate dance between incorporating conflict, the emotions it inspires in characters, and the tension that results from those two factors.

How to read it: Purchase Writing with Emotion, Tension, and Conflict on Amazon and add it on Goodreads

Part ii: the best books on the productivity, mfas, and the business of writing, 2k to 10k: writing faster, writing better, and writing more of what you love by rachel aaron.

For you if: You struggle to find the time to write and always seem to be a chapter or two behind schedule .

If you’re struggling to find time of your own to write with competing obligations (family, work, whatever) making that hard, you need Rachel Aaron’s 2k to 10k . This book will get you in shape to go from writing just a few words an hour to, eventually, 10,000 words a day. Yes, you read that right. 10,000 words a day. At that rate, you can complete so many more projects and publish more. Writers simply cannot afford to waste time if they want to keep up the kind of production that leads to perpetual publication. Trust me, Aaron’s method works. It has for me. I’m on my way to 10k in the future, currently at like 4 or 5k a day for me at the moment.

How to read it: Purchase 2k to 10k on Amazon and add it on Goodreads

The 3 a.m. epiphany by brian kitele.

For you if: You’re going through writer’s block, have been away from writing for a while, or just want to loosen up and try something new .

Every writer must own an an exercise or prompt book. Why? Because regularly practicing your writing by going outside your current works-in-progress (or writer’s block) will free you up, help you plant the seeds for new ideas, and defrost your creative blocks. And the best book writing exercise book I know is The 3 A.M. Epiphany by Brian Kiteley, an MFA professor who uses prompts like these with his grad students. You’ll find that this book (and its sequel, The 4 A.M. Breakthrough ) go beyond cutesy exercises and forces you to push outside your comfort zone and learn something from the writing you find there.

How to read it: Purchase The 3 A.M. Epiphany on Amazon and add it on Goodreads

The 4-hour workweek by timothy ferriss.

For you if: You think being a writer means you have to be poor .

The 4-Hour Workweek changed my life. Although not strictly about writing in the traditional sense, The 4-Hour Workweek does an excellent job teaching you about how passive income can offer you freedom. I first heard about The 4-Hour Workweek when I was getting into tarot in 2013. On Biddy Tarot , founder Brigit (author of some of the best books on tarot ) related how she read this book, learned how to create passive income, and quit her corporate job to read tarot full time. As a person with a total and permanent disability, this spoke to me because it offered a way out of the 9-to-5 “active” income that I thought was the only way. I picked up Ferriss’s book and learned that there’s more than one option, and that passive income is a viable way for me to make money even when I’m too sick to work. I saw this come true last year when I was in the hospital. When I got out, I checked my stats and learned I’d made money off my blog and books even while I was hospitalized and couldn’t do any “active” work. I almost cried.; I’ve been working on my passive income game since 2013, and I saw a return on that time investment when I needed it most.

That’s why I’m recommending The 4-Hour Workweek to writers. So much of our trade is producing passive income products. Yes, your books are products! And for many writers, this means rewiring your brain to stop looking at writing strictly as an art that will leave you impoverished for life and start approaching writing as a business that can earn you a real living through passive income. No book will help you break out of that mindset better than The 4-Hour Workweek and its actionable steps, proven method, and numerous examples of people who have followed the strategy and are living the lifestyle they’ve always dreamed of but never thought was possible.

How to read it: Purchase The 4-Hour Workweek on Amazon and add it on Goodreads

Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer’s Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book by Courtney Maum

For you if: You’re serious about making a living as a writer and publishing with a Big 5 or major indie publisher .

Courtney Maum’s Before and After the Book Deal addresses exactly what its title suggests: what happens after you sell your first book. This book is for ambitious writers intent on submission who know they want to write and want to avoid common pitfalls while negotiating terms and life after your debut. As many published authors would tell you, the debut is one thing, but following that book up with a sustainable, successful career is another trick entirely. Fortunately, we have Maum’s book, packed with to-the-moment details and advice.

How to read it: Purchase Before and After the Book Deal on Amazon and add it on Goodreads

Diy mfa: write with focus, read with purpose, build your community by gabriela pereira.

For you if: You’re stressed out wondering if you really need an MFA .

The MFA is under this header “business of writing” because it is absolutely an economic choice you make. And, look, I’m biased. I’m getting an MFA. But back when I was grappling with whether or not it was worth it—the debt, the time, the stress—I consulted with DIY MFA , an exceptional guide to learning how to enrich your writing craft, career, and community outside the structures of an MFA program. I’ve also more than once visited the companion site, DIYMFA.com , to find a kind of never-ending rabbit hole of new and timeless content on the writing life. On DIYMFA.com and in the corresponding book, you’ll find a lively hub for author interviews, writing craft shop talk, reading lists, and business of writing articles.

How to read it: Purchase DIY MFA on Amazon and add it on Goodreads

Mfa vs. nyc by chad harbach.

For you if: You’re wondering how far an MFA really gets you—and you’re ready to learn the realities of the publishing world .

About a thousand years ago (well, in 2007), I spent the fall of my sophomore year of college as a “Fiction Submissions and Advertising Intern” for the literary magazine n+1 , which was co-founded by Chad Harbach, who you might know from his buzzy novel, The Art of Fielding . In MFA vs NYC , Harbach offers his perspective as both an MFA graduate and someone deeply enmeshed in the New York City publishing industry. This thought-provoking look at these two arenas that launch writers will pull the wool up from your eyes about how publishing really works . It’s not just Harbach’s voice you get in here, though. The book, slim but mighty, includes perspectives from the likes of George Saunders and David Foster Wallace in the MFA camp and Emily Gould and Keith Gessen speaking to NYC’s writing culture.

How to read it: Purchase MFA vs. NYC on Amazon and add it on Goodreads

Scratch: writers, money, and the art of making a living – edited by manjula martin.

For you if: a) You’re worried about how to balance writing with making a living; b) You’re not worried about how to balance writing with making a living .

Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living is alternately one of the most underrated and essential books on writing out there. This collection of personal essays and interviews all revolve around the taboo theme of how writers make their living, and it’s not always—indeed, rarely—through writing alone. Some of the many contributing authors include Cheryl Strayed ( Wild ), Alexander Chee ( How to Write an Autobiographical Novel ), Jennifer Weiner ( Mrs. Everything ), Austin Kleon ( Steal Like an Artist ), and many others. Recently a young woman asked me for career advice on being a professional freelance writer, and I made sure to recommend Scratch as an eye-opening and candid read that is both motivating and candid.

How to read it: Purchase Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living on Amazon and add it on Goodreads

Write to market: deliver a book that sells by chris fox.

For you if: You don’t know why your books aren’t selling—and you want to start turning a profit by getting a real publishing strategy

So you don’t have to be an indie author to internalize the invaluable wisdom you’ll find here in Write to Market . I first heard about Write to Market when I first joined the 20Booksto50K writing group on Facebook , a massive, supportive, motivating community of mostly indie authors. Everyone kept talking about Write to Market . I read the book in a day and found the way I looked at publishing change. Essentially, what Chris Fox does in Write to Market is help you learn to identify what are viable publishing niches. Following his method, I’ve since published several successful and #1 bestselling books in the quotations genre on Amazon . Without Fox’s book, I’m not sure I would have gotten there on my own.

How to read it: Purchase Write to Market on Amazon and add it on Goodreads

And that’s a wrap what are some of your favorite writing books, share this:, you might be interested in.

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Sarah S. Davis is the founder of Broke by Books, a blog about her journey as a schizoaffective disorder bipolar type writer and reader. Sarah's writing about books has appeared on Book Riot, Electric Literature, Kirkus Reviews, BookRags, PsychCentral, and more. She has a BA in English from the University of Pennsylvania, a Master of Library and Information Science from Clarion University, and an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

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Since 1967, Teachers & Writers Collaborative has published over 80 books dedicated to teaching creative writing. Today, 42 titles are in print. Retailers and educational institutions may order our books directly through Ingram . Individuals may find our books at your local bookseller. Visit our booklist at Word Up Books , an NYC community bookstore, or find an independent bookseller near you Visit Indie Bookstore Finder.

Click on the categories below to see filtered lists of books., essay books, featured releases, poetry books, science books, t&w guides, theater books, workshop books, featured books.

The Adventures of Dr. Alphabet: 104 Unusual Ways to Write Poetry in the Classroom & the Community

The Adventures of Dr. Alphabet: 104 Unusual Ways to Write Poetry in the Classroom & the Community By Dave Morice 272 pp. Grades: kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, high school $19.95 paperback There are quite a few creative writing manuals on the market, but there is nothing remotely like The Adventures of Dr. Alphabet, a…

Spellbound: The Art of Teaching Poetry

Spellbound: The Art of Teaching Poetry Edited By Matthew Burgess 240 pp. Grades: all ages $19.95 paperback Spellbound: The Art of Teaching Poetry offers a range of exciting ideas to inspire students of all ages to explore their potential as writers and creators. Featuring original lesson by 26 contributors, including Aracelis Girmay, Bianca Stone, Jason Koo, and…

When Stories Come to School: Telling, Writing, & Performing Stories in the Early Childhood Classroom

When Stories Come to School: Telling, Writing, & Performing Stories in the Early Childhood Classroom By Patsy Cooper, 144pp. Grades: nursery school, kindergarten, elementary school $15.95 paperback Patsy Cooper offers preschool teachers, kindergarten teachers, daycare workers, and parents a wonderful and natural way to help young children begin to read and write: placing stories at the…

What is Poetry: Conversations with the American Avant-Garde

What is Poetry: Conversations with the American Avant-Garde By Daniel Kane 185 pp. Grades: high school, university $18.95 paperback Over a four-year period, Daniel Kane interviewed many of America’s most interesting and daring contemporary poets about their work. What Is Poetry features twelve of the liveliest of these dialogues, accompanied by an in-depth introduction to…

Tolstoy as Teacher: Leo Tolstoy’s Writings on Education

Tolstoy as Teacher: Leo Tolstoy’s Writings on Education Edited with an Introduction by Bob Blaisdell Translated by Christopher Edgar 265 pp. Grades: all ages $18.95 paperback Before he wrote War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy founded his own school on his estate at Yasnaya Polyana. Brimming with progressive and sometimes radical ideas on schooling, Tolstoy…

Third Mind: Creative Writing through Visual Art

Third Mind: Creative Writing through Visual Art Edited by Tonya Foster & Kristin Prevallet 240 pp. Grades: all ages $19.95 paperback This anthology of essays about the challenges and rewards of uniting visual art and creative writing not only demonstrates how art can spark wonderful student writing, but goes much further, offering novel insights into…

The Writing Workshop Vol 2: How to Teach Creative Writing

The Writing Workshop Vol 2: How to Teach Creative Writing By Alan Ziegler 274 pp. Grades: all ages $14.95 paperback In The Writing Workshop, Alan Ziegler offers teachers and aspiring writers strategies for developing constructive workshop environments. Volume 2 offers a compendium of writing assignments, with advice on presentation and variations. “No other book on writing…

The Writing Workshop Vol 1: How to Teach Creative Writing

The Writing Workshop Vol 1: How to Teach Creative Writing By Alan Ziegler 175 pp. Grades: all ages $14.95 paperback In The Writing Workshop, Alan Ziegler offers teachers and aspiring writers strategies for developing constructive workshop environments. Volume 1 discusses the writing process and the teacher’s relationship with student writers. “No other book on writing combines…

The T&W Guide to William Carlos Williams

The T&W Guide to William Carlos Williams Edited by Gary Lenhart 200 pp. Grades: all ages $15.95 paperback This T&W guide brings together 17 innovative essays on using the work of William Carlos Williams to inspire writing by students and adults. The book covers a wide range of Williams’s oeuvre—from such classics as “The Red…

The T&W Guide to Walt Whitman

The T&W Guide to Walt Whitman Edited by Ron Padgett 224 pp. Grades: all ages $16.95 paperback Fifteen poets have created this first and only guide to teaching Walt Whitman from kindergarten to the college level. The book features fresh ways to read Whitman and to write poetry and prose inspired by his model. Also…

The T&W Guide to Frederick Douglass

The T&W Guide to Frederick Douglass Edited by Wesley Brown, 122 pp. Grades: all ages $15.95 paperback This T&W Guide provides ways for students to experience Frederick Douglass’ Narrative as an aesthetic achievement as well as a socio-historical document. This book emphasizes writing as a means for students to learn about Douglass, his times, and his…

The T&W Guide to Classic American Literature

The T&W Guide to Classic American Literature Edited by Christopher Edgar and Gary Lenhart, 293 pp. Grades: all ages $19.95 paperback In “The American Scholar,” Ralph Waldo Emerson called for a literature emerging from the particularities of the new nation, and a host of great 19th- and 20th-century American poets, fiction writers, and playwrights responded…

The Story in History: Writing Your Way into the American Experience

The Story in History: Writing Your Way into the American Experience By Margot Fortunato Galt 263 pp. Grades: middle school, high school, university, all ages $19.95 paperback The Story in History gives teachers and students of all levels an entirely new way to learn about American history: by re-experiencing it from the vantage point of the…

The List Poem: A Guide to Teaching & Writing Catalog Verse

The List Poem: A Guide to Teaching & Writing Catalog Verse By Larry Fagin 201 pp. Grades: all ages $16.95 paperback The list poem is one of the simplest ways for beginners to approach the writing of free-verse poetry. Larry Fagin’s seminal guide defines list poetry, traces its lineage from ancient times, offers writing ideas and…

The Dictionary of Wordplay

The Dictionary of Wordplay By Dave Morice 293 pp. Grades: all ages $19.95 paperback $5.95 eBook The Dictionary of Wordplay is the first dictionary of wordplay, ever. The more than 1,234 entries in Morice’s Dictionary range from the acrostic and the “exquisite corpse” to palindromes, spoonerisms, and anagrams. From these the reader moves on to such esoteric and fascinating…

The Circuit Writer: Writing with Schools and Communities

The Circuit Writer: Writing with Schools and Communities By Margot Fortunato Galt 147 pp. Grades: all ages $14.95 paperback The Circuit Writer: Writing with Schools and Communities is Margot Fortunato Galt’s compelling account of her 3 decades as a visiting writer in the Upper Midwest, teaching such diverse populations as Somali and Hmong refugees, Dakota…

The Art of Science Writing

The Art of Science Writing By Dale Worsley & Bernadette Mayer 224 pp. Grades: middle school, high school, university $17.95 paperback The Art of Science Writing features innovative advice about science writing, as well as inspiring examples from Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Jane Goodall, Stephen Jay Gould, and others. Topics covered include: essay development; writing…

The Alphabet of the Trees: A Guide to Nature Writing

The Alphabet of the Trees: A Guide to Nature Writing Edited by Christian McEwen & Mark Statman 320 pp. Grades: all ages $19.95 paperback The Alphabet of the Trees is a superb collection of essays about teaching all aspects and forms of nature writing, including field journals, poems, fiction, and nonfiction. The distinguished contributors to this volume…

Teaching & Writing Popular Fiction: Horror, Adventure, Mystery, & Romance in the Classroom

Teaching & Writing Popular Fiction: Horror, Adventure, Mystery, & Romance in the Classroom By Karen Hubert 236 pp. Grades: kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, high school $15.95 paperback Popular fiction can play an instrumental role in the classroom. This fascinating guide provides ways to help K-12 students write using the popular literature they know and love….

Sweet Illusions: A Young Adult Novel

Sweet Illusions: A Young Adult Novel By Walter Dean Myers 146 pp. Grades: elementary school, middle school, high school $9.95 paperback Sweet Illusions is unusual. It can be used in two different ways. Students can read it as they read any narrative, or they can help to create the story. Walter Dean Myers, the well-known author…

Structure & Surprise: Engaging Poetic Turns

Structure & Surprise: Engaging Poetic Turns By Michael Theune 243 pp. Grades: high school, university $19.95 paperback Structure & Surprise: Engaging Poetic Turns offers a road map for analyzing poetry through examination of poems’ structures, rather than their forms or genres. Michael Theune’s breakthrough concept encourages students, teachers, and writers to use structure as a tool…

Sing the Sun Up: Creative Writing Ideas from African American Literature

Sing the Sun Up: Creative Writing Ideas from African American Literature Edited by Lorenzo Thomas 200 pp. Grades: all ages $16.95 paperback In Sing the Sun Up, 20 writers present new and exciting ways to motivate students to write imaginatively, inspired by African American poetry, prose, and drama. Teachers of English literature, creative writing, and Black…

Secret Writing: Keys to the Mysteries of Reading and Writing

Secret Writing: Keys to the Mysteries of Reading and Writing By Peter Sears 180 pp. Grades: high school, university $14.95 paperback Secret Writing is a fascinating study of the nature of codes. Beginning with the word game Hangman, and proceeding to discuss Egyptian hieroglyphs, prehistoric cave paintings, military codes, the surprising sense of nonsense, and difficult…

Poetry Everywhere: Teaching Poetry Writing in School and in the Community

Poetry Everywhere: Teaching Poetry Writing in School and in the Community By Jack Collom & Sheryl Noethe revised second edition 329 pp. Grades: all ages $19.95 paperback The dazzling new edition of this “tremendously valuable resource” (Kliatt) contains 65 writing exercises and more than 400 example poems. It also discusses how to integrate poetry writing into…

Poetry Comics: An Animated Anthology

Poetry Comics: An Animated Anthology By Dave Morice 117 pp. Grades: all ages $17.95 paperback Dave Morice’s Poetry Comics offers literary mavens and students alike a look at the canon in a new and hilarious light. This anthology brings together such classics as Shakespeare’s sonnets, Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass,” and Emily Dickinson’s “Poem 303” with…

Playmaking: Children Writing and Performing Their Own Plays

Playmaking: Children Writing and Performing Their Own Plays By Daniel Judah Sklar 184 pp. Grades: kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, high school $16.95 paperback Playmaking is an award-winning, step-by-step account of teaching children to write, direct, and perform their own plays—as staged readings, videotapes, radio plays, and full stage productions. An exciting guide for cultivating the…

Personal Fiction Writing: A Guide to Writing from Real Life for Teachers, Students, & Writers

Personal Fiction Writing: A Guide to Writing from Real Life for Teachers, Students, & Writers By Meredith Sue Willis revised second edition 248 pp. Grades: all ages $18.95 paperback Personal Fiction Writing treats the writing of fiction as a natural process that anyone can do with pleasure. The book includes more than 400 writing assignments based…

Our Difficult Sunlight: A Guide to Poetry, Literacy, Social Justice in Classroom & Community

Our Difficult Sunlight: A Guide to Poetry, Literacy, Social Justice in Classroom & Community by Georgia A. Popoff and Quraysh Ali Lansana Grades: all ages $19.95 paperback Our Difficult Sunlight: A Guide to Poetry, Literacy, & Social Justice in Classroom & Community was nominated for the 2012 NAACP Image Award in the category of Outstanding Literary Work-Instructional….

Old Faithful: 18 Writers Present Their Favorite Writing Assignments

Old Faithful: 18 Writers Present Their Favorite Writing Assignments Edited by Christopher Edgar & Ron Padgett 160 pp. Grades: all ages $16.95 paperback In this popular book, 18 creative writers describe their single best writing assignment, the one that never fails to inspire their students to tell and dramatize stories; to write autobiographical pieces, fiction,…

Moving Windows: Evaluating the Poetry Children Write

Moving Windows: Evaluating the Poetry Children Write By Jack Collom 179 pp. Grades: all ages $14.95 paperback How do you assess such a personal art as poetry? Basing his discussion on the best poems he has collected from his students over the years, Jack Collom provides a poet’s view of what makes them good. Collom’s approach…

Making Theater: Developing Plays with Young People

Making Theater: Developing Plays with Young People By Herbert Kohl 131 pp. Grades: elementary school, middle school $14.95 paperback Herbert Kohl invites teachers to explore improvisation and dramatic dialogues with their students and provides strategies for transforming young writers into playwrights. He also offers methods for adapting great works of literature into classroom performances. “[Kohl] writes…

Luna, Luna: Creative Writing Ideas from Spanish, Latin American, and Latino Literature

Luna, Luna: Creative Writing Ideas from Spanish, Latin American, and Latino Literature Edited by Julio Marzán 248 pp. Grades: all ages $17.95 paperback In these 21 lively essays, teachers and writers tell how they have used Spanish, Latin American, and Latino literature to inspire their students to create their own poems and stories. The literary models…

Listener in the Snow: The Practice and Teaching of Poetry

Listener in the Snow: The Practice and Teaching of Poetry By Mark Statman, Preface by Kenneth Koch 175 pp. Grades: kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, high school $15.95 paperback In Listener in the Snow, Mark Statman presents practical ideas and assignments to help students reach beyond what they’ve already been doing. His method involves what…

Illuminations: Great Writers on Writing

Illuminations: Great Writers on Writing Edited by Christina Davis & Christopher Edgar 120 pp. Grades: high school, university $18.95 paperback Illuminations is a dazzling behind-the-scenes look at the art of writing, with 55 thought-provoking passages by great writers from around the world and throughout history, including Dante, Sei Shonagon, Franz Kafka, Edgar Allan Poe, Marina…

I Never Told Anybody: Teaching Poetry Writing to Old People

I Never Told Anybody: Teaching Poetry Writing to Old People This classic guide by the trailblazer of poetry teaching offers ideas and techniques that are useful at all age levels. Kenneth Koch has taken his “thoughtful, giving, resourceful, and patient spirit to quite elderly and often infirm men and women… A poignant and dramatic victory.”—New York…

Handbook of Poetic Forms

Handbook of Poetic Forms Edited by Ron Padgett revised second edition 256 pp. Grades: all ages $19.95 paperback The second edition of this best-selling handbook includes 76 entries on traditional and modern poetic forms, an updated bibliography, and a resource list of current audio and videocassettes. The Handbook succinctly defines the forms, summarizes their histories, quotes…

From Medusa to the Sky: Teaching Writing to Children with Special Needs

From Medusa to the Sky: Teaching Writing to Children with Special Needs Edited by Nicole Callihan and Catherine Barnett eBook edition The exercises in From Medusa to the Sky grew out of Teachers & Writers Collaborative’s long history of providing creative writing programs for students in New York City’s District 75 schools and classrooms, which serve…

Educating the Imagination Volume 2: Essays and Ideas for Teachers and Writers

Educating the Imagination Volume 2: Essays and Ideas for Teachers and Writers Edited by Christopher Edgar & Ron Padgett 320 pp. Grades: all ages $14.95 paperback The essays in Educating the Imagination were selected from the very best articles in Teachers & Writers magazine. Fifty-five creative writers present a multitude of ideas and techniques for…

Educating the Imagination Volume 1: Essays and Ideas for Teachers and Writers

Educating the Imagination Volume 1: Essays and Ideas for Teachers and Writers Edited by Christopher Edgar & Ron Padgett 304 pp. Grades: all ages $14.95 paperback The essays in Educating the Imagination were selected from the very best articles in Teachers & Writers magazine. Fifty-five creative writers present a multitude of ideas and techniques for…

Deep Revision: A Guide for Teachers, Students, and Other Writers

Deep Revision: A Guide for Teachers, Students, and Other Writers By Meredith Sue Willis 192 pp. Grades: all ages $16.95 paperback If you or your students dread the process of revision, this book will prove transformative. Deep Revision covers topics such as: revision as a natural process, learning to revise by editing other people’s writing, changing…

Classics in the Classroom: Using Great Literature to Teach Writing

Classics in the Classroom: Using Great Literature to Teach Writing Edited by Christopher Edgar & Ron Padgett 240 pp. Grades: all ages $17.95 paperback Classics in the Classroom presents fascinating strategies for using great literature to inspire imaginative writing. The literature discussed in this volume includes myths, epics, lyric poems, plays, stories, and novels, from ancient Sumeria, Greece,…

A Slow Flash of Light: An Anthology of Poems about Poetry

A Slow Flash of Light: An Anthology of Poems about Poetry Compiled by Jack Collom eBook edition You might think that an anthology of poems about poetry could not be fascinating—until you read this one. A Slow Flash of Light was assembled by poet-teacher Jack Collom, who over a 25-year period gave his students surprising…

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Top 10 books about creative writing

From linguistics to essays by Zadie Smith and Toni Morrison, poet Anthony Anaxagorou recommends some ‘lateral’ ways in to a demanding craft

T he poet Rita Dove was once asked what makes poetry successful. She went on to illuminate three key areas: First, the heart of the writer; the things they wish to say – their politics and overarching sensibilities. Second, their tools: how they work language to organise and position words. And the third, the love a person must have for books: “To read, read, read.”

When I started mapping out How to Write It , I wanted to focus on the aspects of writing development that took in both theoretical and interpersonal aspects. No writer lives in a vacuum, their job is an endless task of paying attention.

How do I get myself an agent? What’s the best way to approach a publisher? Should I self-publish? There is never one way to assuage the concerns of those looking to make a career out of writing. Many labour tirelessly for decades on manuscripts that never make it to print. The UK on average publishes around 185,000 new titles per year, ranking us the third largest publishing market in the world, yet the number of aspiring writers is substantially greater.

Writers writing about writing can become a supercilious endeavour; I’m more interested in the process of making work and the writer’s perspectives that substantiate the framework.

There’s no single authority, anything is possible. All that’s required are some words and an idea – which makes the art of writing enticing but also difficult and daunting. The books listed below, diverse in their central arguments and genres, guide us towards more interesting and lateral ways to think about what we want to say, and ultimately, how we choose to say it.

1. The Hatred of Poetry by Ben Lerner An intellectual meditation on the cultural function of poetry. Less idealistic than other poetry criticism, Lerner puts forward a richly layered case for the reasons writers and readers alike turn to poetry, probing into why it’s often misconceived as elitist or tedious, and asks that we reconsider the value we place on the art form today.

2. Find Your Voice by Angie Thomas One of the hardest things about creative writing is developing a voice and not compromising your vision for the sake of public appeal. Thomas offers sharp advice to those wrestling with novels or Young Adult fiction. She writes with appealing honesty, taking in everything from writer’s block to deciding what a final draft should look like. The book also comes interspersed with prompts and writing exercises alongside other tips and suggestions to help airlift writers out of the mud.

3. Linguistics: Why It Matters by Geoffrey K Pullum If language is in a constant state of flux, and rules governing sentence construction, meaning and logic are always at a point of contention, what then can conventional modes of language and linguistics tell us about ourselves, our cultures and our relationship to the material world? Pullum addresses a number of philosophical questions through the scientific study of human languages – their grammars, clauses and limitations. An approachable, fascinating resource for those interested in the mechanics of words.

4. Madness, Rack, and Honey by Mary Ruefle The collected lectures of poet and professor Mary Ruefle present us with an erudite inquiry into some of the major aspects of a writer’s mind and craft. Ruefle possesses an uncanny ability to excavate broad and complex subjects with such unforced and original lucidity that you come away feeling as if you’ve acquired an entirely new perspective from only a few pages. Themes range from sentimentality in poetry, to fear, beginnings and – a topic she returns to throughout the book – wonder. “A poem is a finished work of the mind, it is not the work of a finished mind.”

5. Feel Free by Zadie Smith These astute and topical essays dating from 2010 to 2017 demonstrate Smith’s forensic ability to navigate and unpack everything from Brexit to Justin Bieber. Dissecting high philosophical works then bringing the focus back on to her own practice as a fiction writer, her essay The I Who Is Not Me sees Smith extrapolate on how autobiography shapes novel writing, and elucidates her approach to thinking around British society’s tenuous and often binary perspectives on race, class and ethnicity.

6. Threads by Sandeep Parmar, Nisha Ramayya and Bhanu Kapil Who occupies the “I” in poetry? When poets write, are they personally embodying their speakers or are they intended to be emblematic of something larger and more complex? Is the “I” assumed to be immutable or is it more porous? These are the questions posited in Threads, which illuminates the function of the lyric “I” in relation to whiteness, maleness and Britishness. Its short but acute essays interrogate whiteness’s hegemony in literature and language, revealing how writers from outside the dominant paradigm are often made to reckon with the positions and perspectives they write from.

7. Mouth Full of Blood by Toni Morrison An urgent set of essays and lectures from the late Nobel prize winner that collates her most discerning musings around citizenship, race and art, as well as offering invaluable insight into the craft of writing. She reflects on revisions made to her most famous novel, Beloved, while also reflecting on the ways vernaculars can shape new stories. One of my favourite aphorisms written by Morrison sits on my desk and declares: “As writers, what we do is remember. And to remember this world is to create it.”

8. On Poetry by Jonathan Davidson Poetry can be thought of as something arduous or an exercise in analysis, existing either within small artistic enclaves or secondary school classrooms. One of the many strengths of Davidson’s writing is how he makes poetry feel intimate and personal, neither dry or remote. His approach to thinking around ways that certain poems affect us is well measured without being exclusive. A timely and resourceful book for writers interested in how poems go on to live with us throughout our lives.

9. Essays by Lydia Davis From flash fiction to stories, Davis is recognised as one of the preeminent writers of short-form fiction. In these essays, spanning several decades, she tracks much of her writing process and her relationship to experimentalism, form and the ways language can work when pushed to its outer limits. How we read into lines is something Davis returns to, as is the idea of risk and brevity within micro-fiction.

10. Essayism by Brian Dillon Dillon summarises the essay as an “experiment in attention”. This dynamic and robust consideration of the form sheds light on how and why certain essays have changed the cultural and political landscape, from the end of the Middle Ages to the present time. A sharp and curious disquisition on one of the more popular yet challenging writing enterprises.

How to Write It by Anthony Anaxagorou is published by Merky Books. To order a copy, go to guardianbookshop.com .

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Language » Writing Books

The best books on creative writing, recommended by andrew cowan.

The professor of creative writing at UEA says Joseph Conrad got it right when he said that the sitting down is all. He chooses five books to help aspiring writers.

Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande

On Becoming a Novelist by John C. Gardner

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

The Forest for the Trees by Betsy Lerner

Worstward Ho by Samuel Beckett

1 Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande

2 on becoming a novelist by john c. gardner, 3 on writing: a memoir of the craft by stephen king, 4 the forest for the trees by betsy lerner, 5 worstward ho by samuel beckett.

How would you describe creative writing?

But because it is in academia there is all this paraphernalia that has to go with it. So you get credits for attending classes. You have to do supporting modules; you have to be assessed. If you are doing an undergraduate degree you have to follow a particular curriculum and only about a quarter of that will be creative writing and the rest will be in the canon of English literature . If you are doing a PhD you have to support whatever the creative element is with a critical element. So there are these ways in which academia disciplines writing and I think of that as Creative Writing with a capital C and a capital W. All of us who teach creative writing are doing it, in a sense, to support our writing, but it is also often at the expense of our writing. We give up quite a lot of time and mental energy and also, I think, imaginative and creative energy to teach.

Your first choice is Dorothea Brande’s Becoming a Writer , which for someone writing in 1934 sounds pretty forward thinking.

Because creative writing has now taken off and has become this very widespread academic discipline it is beginning to acquire its own canon of key works and key texts. This is one of the oldest of them. It’s a book that almost anyone who teaches creative writing will have read. They will probably have read it because some fundamentals are explained and I think the most important one is Brande’s sense of the creative writer being comprised of two people. One of them is the artist and the other is the critic.

Actually, Malcolm Bradbury who taught me at UEA, wrote the foreword to my edition of Becoming a Writer , and he talks about how Dorothea Brande was writing this book ‘in Freudian times’ – the 1930s in the States. And she does have this very Freudian idea of the writer as comprised of a child artist on the one hand, who is associated with spontaneity, unconscious processes, while on the other side there is the adult critic making very careful discriminations.

And did she think the adult critic hindered the child artist?

No. Her point is that the two have to work in harmony and in some way the writer has to achieve an effective balance between the two, which is often taken to mean that you allow the artist child free rein in the morning. So you just pour stuff on to the page in the morning when you are closest to the condition of sleep. The dream state for the writer is the one that is closest to the unconscious. And then in the afternoon you come back to your morning’s work with your critical head on and you consciously and objectively edit it. Lots of how-to-write books encourage writers to do it that way. It is also possible that you can just pour stuff on to the page for days on end as long as you come back to it eventually with a critical eye.

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Good! Your next book, John Gardner’s On Becoming a Novelist , is described as comfort food for the aspiring novelist.

This is another one of the classics. He was quite a successful novelist in the States, but possibly an even more successful teacher of creative writing. The short story writer and poet Raymond Carver, for instance, was one of his students. And he died young in a motorcycle accident when he was 49. There are two classic works by him. One is this book, On Becoming a Novelist , and the other is The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers . They were both put together from his teaching notes after he died.

On Becoming a Novelist is the more succinct and, I think, is the better of the two. He talks about automatic writing and the idea, just like Dorothea Brande, of the artist being comprised of two people. But his key idea is the notion of the vivid and continuous dream. He suggests that when we read a novel we submit to the logic of that novel in the same way as we might submit to the logic of a dream – we sink into it, and clearly the events that occur could not exist outside the imagination.

What makes student writing in particular go wrong is when it draws attention to itself, either through bad writing or over-elaborate writing. He suggests that these faults in the aspirant writer alert the reader to the fact that they are reading a fiction and it is a bit like giving someone who is dreaming a nudge. It jolts them out of the dream. So he proposes that the student writer should try to create a dream state in the reader that is vivid and appeals to all the senses and is continuous. What you mustn’t do is alert the reader to the fact that they are reading a fiction.

It is a very good piece of advice for writers starting out but it is ultimately very limiting. It rules out all the great works of modernism and post-modernism, anything which is linguistically experimental. It rules out anything which draws attention to the words as words on a page. It’s a piece of advice which really applies to the writing of realist fiction, but is a very good place from which to begin.

And then people can move on.

I never would have expected the master of terror Stephen King to write a book about writing. But your next choice, On Writing , is more of an autobiography .

Yes. It is a surprise to a lot of people that this book is so widely read on university campuses and so widely recommended by teachers of writing. Students love it. It’s bracing: there’s no nonsense. He says somewhere in the foreword or preface that it is a short book because most books are filled with bullshit and he is determined not to offer bullshit but to tell it like it is.

It is autobiographical. It describes his struggle to emerge from his addictions – to alcohol and drugs – and he talks about how he managed to pull himself and his family out of poverty and the dead end into which he had taken them. He comes from a very disadvantaged background and through sheer hard work and determination he becomes this worldwide bestselling author. This is partly because of his idea of the creative muse. Most people think of this as some sprite or fairy that is usually feminine and flutters about your head offering inspiration. His idea of the muse is ‘a basement guy’, as he calls him, who is grumpy and turns up smoking a cigar. You have to be down in the basement every day clocking in to do your shift if you want to meet the basement guy.

Stephen King has this attitude that if you are going to be a writer you need to keep going and accept that quite a lot of what you produce is going to be rubbish and then you are going to revise it and keep working at it.

Do you agree with him?

He sounds inspirational. Your next book, Betsy Lerner’s The Forest for the Trees , looks at things from the editor’s point of view.

Yes, she was an editor at several major American publishing houses, such as Simon & Schuster. She went on to become an agent, and also did an MFA in poetry before that, so she came through the US creative writing process and understands where many writers are coming from.

The book is divided into two halves. In the second half she describes the process that goes from the completion of the author’s manuscript to submitting it to agents and editors. She explains what goes on at the agent’s offices and the publisher’s offices. She talks about the drawing up of contracts, negotiating advances and royalties. So she takes the manuscript from the author’s hands, all the way through the publishing process to its appearance in bookshops. She describes that from an insider’s point of view, which is hugely interesting.

But the reason I like this book is for the first half of it, which is very different. Here she offers six chapters, each of which is a character sketch of a different type of author. She has met each of them and so although she doesn’t mention names you feel she is revealing something to you about authors whose books you may have read. She describes six classic personality types. She has the ambivalent writer, the natural, the wicked child, the self-promoter, the neurotic and a chapter called ‘Touching Fire’, which is about the addictive and the mentally unstable.

Your final choice is Worstward Ho by Samuel Beckett .

This is a tiny book – it is only about 40 pages and it has got these massive white margins and really large type. I haven’t counted, but I would guess it is only about two to three thousand words and it is dressed up as a novella when it is really only a short story. On the first page there is this riff: ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’

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When I read this I thought I had discovered a slogan for the classroom that I could share with my students. I want to encourage them to make mistakes and not to be perfectionists, not to feel that everything they do has to be of publishable standard. The whole point of doing a course, especially a creative writing MA and attending workshops, is that you can treat the course as a sandpit. You go in there, you try things out which otherwise you wouldn’t try, and then you submit it to the scrutiny of your classmates and you get feedback. Inevitably there will be things that don’t work and your classmates will help you to identify those so that you can take it away and redraft it – you can try again. And inevitably you are going to fail again because any artistic endeavour is doomed to failure because the achievement can never match the ambition. That’s why artists keep producing their art and writers keep writing, because the thing you did last just didn’t quite satisfy you, just wasn’t quite right. And you keep going and trying to improve on that.

But why, when so much of it is about failing – failing to get published, failing to be satisfied, failing to be inspired – do writers carry on?

I have a really good quote from Joseph Conrad in which he says the sitting down is all. He spends eight hours at his desk, trying to write, failing to write, foaming at the mouth, and in the end wanting to hit his head on the wall but refraining from that for fear of alarming his wife!

It’s a familiar situation; lots of writers will have been there. For me it is a kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder. It is something I have to keep returning to. I have to keep going back to the sentences, trying to get them right. Trying to line them up correctly. I can’t let them go. It is endlessly frustrating because they are never quite right.

You have published four books. Are you happy with them?

Reasonably happy. Once they are done and gone I can relax and feel a little bit proud of them. But at the time I just experience agonies. It takes me ages. It takes me four or five years to finish a novel partly because I always find distractions – like working in academia – something that will keep me away from the writing, which is equally as unrewarding as it is rewarding!

September 27, 2012

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Andrew Cowan

Andrew Cowan is Professor of Creative Writing and Director of the Creative Writing programme at UEA. His first novel, Pig , won the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the Betty Trask Award, the Ruth Hadden Memorial Prize, the Author’s Club First Novel Award and a Scottish Council Book Award. He is also the author of the novels Common Ground , Crustaceans , What I Know and Worthless Men . His own creative writing guidebook is The Art of Writing Fiction .

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Classroom Q&A

With larry ferlazzo.

In this EdWeek blog, an experiment in knowledge-gathering, Ferlazzo will address readers’ questions on classroom management, ELL instruction, lesson planning, and other issues facing teachers. Send your questions to [email protected]. Read more from this blog.

Advice for Teachers Who Want to Write a Book

(This is the first post in a three-part series.)

The new question-of-the-week is:

What is your advice for active K-12 educators who might be thinking about writing a book?

Many of us feel like we have books “in us.”

In theory, many educators (at least, those who don’t have little kids at home) might have a little more time over the next few months to devote to writing.

This series is designed to support teachers if that theory reflects reality.

Today, educators Sarah Cooper, Tom Rademacher, Rita Platt, and Pernille Ripp share their experiences writing books while teaching at the same time. In Part Two, editors from publishing houses will contribute their suggestions. Part Three will again feature active K-12 teachers writing about their very recent trials and tribulations.

You might also be interested in three previous posts that have appeared here on the same topic:

* ‘Write the Book You Wish You Had on Your Bookshelf’

This final post in a series on teachers writing books shares advice from Kimberly Carraway, Erik Palmer, Jeffrey Benson, and Cathie E. West. In addition, I share a few comments from readers.

* ‘Teachers Make Great Authors’

Allison Scott, Julia Thompson, and Vicki Davis share suggestions for teachers who would like to write a book and get it published. This is the second post in a three-part series.

* Educators Wanting to Write a Book ‘Must Go for It!’

Marjorie McAneny, Alan Sitomer, PJ Caposey, and Steven Anderson share their suggestions for educators who want to write a book.

In addition, here are some additional resources I’ve collected: So, You Want To Write A Book? Here’s The Best Advice...

Six tips for writing a book

Sarah Cooper teaches 8th grade U.S. history and is dean of studies at Flintridge Preparatory School in La Canada, Calif. She is the author of two books, Creating Citizens (Routledge, 2018) and Making History Mine (Stenhouse, 2009). Sarah speaks at conferences and writes for sites including Well-Schooled, Bookclique, MiddleWeb, CivXNow, iCivics, and the Modern Civics Project. All of her recent writing can be found at sarahjcooper.com :

Writing a book about teaching is not as hard as it seems. You don’t need an agent, and cold submissions can be very successful.

In 2007, I had been teaching for almost a decade, always fascinated by curriculum design, and wanted to put my history lesson plans to good use beyond the classroom.

First, I queried Heinemann, which had a temporary hiatus on publishing social studies books because they didn’t sell that well (still don’t, in general, compared with English and general literacy books). An editor there kindly directed me to Stenhouse Publishers.

My first book, Making History Mine: Meaningful Connections for Grades 5-9 , emerged after a Stenhouse submission which included an outline and sample chapter, followed by another sample chapter four months later, followed by an offer two months after that.

My second book, Creating Citizens: Teaching Civics and Current Events in the History Classroom , jump-started itself. An editor at Routledge’s Eye on Education, which partners with MiddleWeb on K-12 titles, wanted someone to write about teaching in a controversial political climate and had read my MiddleWeb blog posts about current events.

Here’s what I’ve learned from publishing two books nearly 10 years apart:

Write a pedagogy book because you know you have something to say - not because you’re hoping it will sell a ton of copies and help you quit your day job. This could be a happy consequence, but it shouldn’t be why you’re writing.

Survey the field before you query. Any proposal should address how your book would be different from what is already out there. If it’s not fresh, keep thinking.

Query committed educational publishing companies such as Stenhouse , Heinemann , Routledge , ASCD , and Corwin . They are actively looking for new voices and believe in supporting authors and teachers.

Listen to your editors. I don’t like admitting it, but every time I received substantial edits, I chafed. Inevitably, though, I realized my editor was right. Through the revision process, I grew as a writer and a teacher, as when my Stenhouse editor suggested that reading about the times I had failed as a teacher was more interesting than hearing about success. And I had renewed empathy for my students when they needed to revise their own drafts based on my comments!

Seize writing time when you can . Sometimes a 20-minute interval can be enough to get down a paragraph or a page. At other times, you may need an uninterrupted two or three hours to let ideas spool out. I wrote my first book while on a six-month maternity leave with my second son (born in March, with perfect “teacher baby” timing!) and my second book while getting a master’s degree through the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. I would not have chosen this timing for either book, but there will never be a perfect time, and sometimes you just have to get started.

Realize that your writing will inform your teaching and vice versa. This symbiosis will keep you honest in your writing and with your students, and it has been perhaps the richest unexpected consequence of publishing. I’m a more creative teacher because writing regularly keeps me experimenting.

Seeing yourself as a researcher and author in addition to a teacher is thrilling - good luck!

“Write your book”

Tom Rademacher is an 8th grade English teacher in the Minneapolis area. His book, It Won’t Be Easy, An Exceedingly Honest (and slightly unprofessional) Love Letter to Teaching, was released in April 2017 and was a finalist for a Minnesota Book Award. His writing has also appeared in Education Post, City Pages, MinnPost, and Huffington Post. In 2014, he was honored as Minnesota’s Teacher of the Year. You can find him at www.mrtomrad.com:

For the first chunk of teaching, eight years or so, I knew that while I was a writer, and while I was a teacher, that I was not someone who wrote about teaching.

I tried. I was very, very bad at it. My attempts came off like a mixture between awful spoken word poetry, stand-up comedy, and the answers one would give when their grandma asked, “How’s school?” Somewhere during that eighth or ninth year, I finally had some teacher thoughts that maybe were good enough to write down. I was ready, at last, for my teacher book.

I had this grand unifying theory of teaching, or at least pieces of it that I was starting to draw lines between in my head. Questions I had about teaching had been answered, and a little digging would surely uncover the magical codex that made every nonsense moment make total sense. I worried about fitting the whole thing into just one book.

I started writing and couldn’t stop. I was a madman, possessed with the fury and fire of this missive, possessed with the need to transcribe everything I had come to understand about this profession during my near-decade. Then I stopped writing. I had written it all down. Every single thing. It was almost two whole pages and had taken me the better part of half an hour.

It was not a book. It was barely long enough to be a blog post.

A couple years later, I did end up writing a book, even publishing it and everything and having the truly and consistently stunning experience of having lots of people read and like it.

I dunno, it felt a little like working really hard to grow a new internal organ and then cutting it out for people to look at and pass around. But, you know, no big deal.

I’ve had a few other teacher friends who have published. The first teacher book I ever truly loved was Jose Vilson’s This is Not a Test. Shanna Peeple’s book Teach Like Socrates should be mandatory for everyone in the world. Megan Olivia Hall just released a book of cool science experiments for kids that includes all the awesome teachy stuff those experiments show. There are others, yes, and each book is the best teacher book I’ve ever read and also makes me feel jealous and bad about myself.

But I was asked for advice, and advice I shall give. There is much advice on publishing and stuff out there. I have found Google dot com to be a very helpful website for finding that sort of how to submit and contracts and self vs. small vs. large press stuff.

Instead, I’ll try to give you the best advice I can manage that is specific to writing teachery books about teachery stuff. Hopefully, that will help, and, if not, Google dot com is, really, a website I cannot recommend enough. Spelled just like it sounds, if you ever forget.

Write Easy:

Teaching is hard. We get used to it being hard. Writing is often no walk on the beach, either. So, yes, the combination can be a pain in the ass. But the problem with torturing yourself to write is that it will often feel like torture to read. So, yeah, give yourself permission not do that. “Write Easy” was my mantra while I finished up the first draft of my manuscript. Any time I got too furrow-browed about it, any time the words felt forced and the practice felt painful, I took a step back.

Write Simple:

Some of the most impactful parts of my book, the parts people have posted or written me letters about, are things that almost didn’t make it. I like to think I’m a pretty smart dude and I get really excited about the ideas I have that feel the most groundbreaking and out there. While editing my book, I had circled a few sections that felt a little too obvious, a little too simple, but ultimately decided to leave them in since it was directed at new teachers.

It turns out that the things that felt too simple to me were exactly what a whole lot of people felt they needed to hear. Readers needed a foundation of how my philosophy and practices evolved, and in different places and different departments, conversations that have been normal and old-hat in one place may not have ever happened in another. Good teacher books are silo-busters.

Write When You Can:

If there’s one thing about writing I know for sure, it is this: Every other writer writes more than you do.

I mean ... it certainly feels that way anyway. You see a tweet or Facebook post about someone maybe considering writing a book, and then two days later they share a picture of the finished manuscript. Writers celebrate daily word-count goals that you haven’t hit in the last three months combined.

It’s OK. Really. Write when you can.

Sometimes, I grab a little time and energy before school starts or during my lunch break. Often, I get an hour or two during a weekend when my kiddo is otherwise occupied and I have either gotten all the laundry, cleaning, and cooking done I had planned to do or, far more frequently, have decided to ignore the rest of my life because I feel compelled to write.

Whatever your schedule, whatever your timetable, whatever your practice, it is yours, and that’s OK. Some books take a few months, and some take many years. Neither path makes a book or a writer necessarily better or worse.

Write Your Book:

There is a method to book writing that involves surveying the market and looking for specific gaps in what is available or in groups that are targeted and then tailoring your book to fill that gap. It’s an OK way to get a book written but not a great way to write your book, the book you could and should write.

You are an expert in your own experience. Start there.

You are the most effective communicator of your own beliefs. Share them.

Your name will be on the front of this thing, whatever it turns out to be. Make sure it’s something that speaks for you, that speaks from you. Write your book.

“Get writing!”

Rita Platt (@ritaplatt) is a national-board-certified teacher and a proud #EduDork! Her experience includes teaching learners of all levels from kindergartner to graduate student. She is currently the principal of St. Croix Falls and Dresser Elementary Schools in Wisconsin, teaches graduate courses for the Professional Development Institute, and writes for MiddleWeb:

Last year, I wrote and published my first book, Working Hard, Working Happy: Cultivating a Climate of Effort and Joy in Your Classroom ! Thanks to the help of the amazing John Norton and Susan Curtis at MiddleWeb and the incredibly supportive Lauren Davis at Routledge Eye on Education , I was able to make a lifelong dream come true. Below are my best tips and hints on how to start down a road that will lead you to writing your own book.

Know What You Love: Teaching and learning is my passion. Education is my hobby, job, profession, and vocation. Before I wrote a book, I had spent thousands of hours thinking about my theories and philosophies and gaining a solid vision for what I wanted to say and why I needed to say it. Dave Burgess (you know the pirate guy) helped me to realize that when a writer plans to develop a book, the content should fill her/his heart and mind so completely that s/he HAS to share it! He advises that the writer think of her/his book as being a magnum opus. I love that advice because it was spot-on for me. When I wrote my book, it was filled to the brim with content that I believe every educator must be exposed to. Writing it was a work of passion, typing the pages was spilling my secrets with the hope that they would impact practice far and wide. I would suggest if you’re not feeling that strongly about the book you want to write, you might not be ready to write it.

Write, Write, and Then Write More : If you have the hope of writing a book, you need to feel like a writer, and for me, the only way to do that was to write and publish. A lot. Early in my career, I realized that it was important to write and share my ideas wherever I could (partial publication list with links is here .) Three opportunities really helped me operationalize my writing life. One, a friend had just started a teacher site, We Teach, We Learn , and he encouraged me to write and post pieces as often as I like. Two, I was lucky enough to cyber-meet Larry Ferlazzo and began writing short pieces for his Classroom Q & A column (this very one!). Three, I started reviewing books for MiddleWeb . Each of these low-pressure inroads to being a “real” writer helped me develop my writing skills, gain confidence, and build my professional network. You can do the same! Review for Middleweb, pitch a post to Edutopia , look for calls for short content on your favorite websites or journals. Even better, buy Jenny Rankin’s AMAZING book, Share Your Education Expertise With the World . It’s full of tips to get you started.

Build Your Knowledge Base and Your PLN : Not only is it important to write a ton, but reading and connecting a ton are, too. Do Google searches for the topics you’re interested in and read to get a feel for what’s already out there. Study the style of authors you like - even better, reach out to them, and pick their brains. If you’re not already on Twitter, that is a MUST! Get your handle and hop into weekly chats. Follow me (@ritaplatt) and ask for help, I’ll gladly show you around. On Twitter, you will grow your Professional Learning Network (PLN) in ways that will blow your mind! You will be amazed at how accessible your favorite edu-authors are. Through Twitter, I have met many of my heroes and found each to be open and willing to help me with my own professional writing goals.

To Sum It Up:

Before you write a book, know your message, your edu-passion, and your vision. Don’t write a book until you’re really ready (ask anyone, you’re probably not going to pay the rent from your sales, it can’t be about that).

Write and publish as much as you can and get your writing life in order.

Read everything and anything that will help you learn your craft, grow as a writer, and see what’s already out there.

Build your PLN; you’ll need the feedback and support.

Thanks for reading. Now, get writing!

“Find your own voice”

Pernille Ripp (@pernilleripp) helps students discover their superpower as a former 4th and 5th, but now 7th grade English teacher in Oregon, Wis. She opens up her educational practices to the world on her blog www.pernillesripp.com and is also the creator of the Global Read Aloud Project , a global literacy initiative that has connected millions of students. She is an internationally known educational speaker and also the author of several education books, with her latest release titled Passionate Readers - The Art of Reaching and Engaging Every Child :

To write a book can often seem like a major “how dare I moment?”

After all, as educators, we are supposed to always think of others, not of ourselves, as we do everything we can to serve the children who are entrusted in our care. And yet, within this profession, the best learning that seems to happen comes from those who have walked this path before us, who took the time, worked through their imposter syndrome, and shared their stories with the world. Who brought their advice, their lessons learned, and their knowledge out to the world in such a way that it encouraged others to step onto their path, perhaps forge their own, and continue the tradition of sharing knowledge so that we all could learn.

So the first piece of advice I have to anyone considering writing a book is this: Find your own voice. What have you learned alongside your students that may be helpful to others? How have you made the messages that surround us all in the education community and made it uniquely your own? How will what you have learned boost the learning of others? My second piece of advice is know whose footsteps you walk in? Who has empowered you to do the work you do? Make sure you acknowledge the shoulders you stand on and give thanks to those who have paved the way. While we often think of original twists to ideas, it is rare that anything is truly unique to us, and so knowing your history of educational practices is important, much like citing research. Write for yourself first, then write for others second, share your work in order to fine tune before approaching a publisher, and also be aware of what is already out there.

My final piece of advice is to make it a priority. We balance a lot as educators, and often, writing a book is not at the top of our list of priorities. But it must be if we are to inspire the next generation of educators, if we are to grow as a collective. Find a routine, much like we would encourage our students to do, and stick to it. Believe in your own worth and write your truth. Invite others into your journey, not because you have the only right answer, but because your thoughts will add to the ongoing educational dialogue and your ideas may be exactly what someone else needs. Do not feel that putting your own words out there is something others need to give you permission for; give yourself permission to share your work and then stay true to the mission, bettering education for all.

Thanks to Tom, Sarah, Rita, and Pernille for their contributions!

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at [email protected] . When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo .

Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog, along with new material, in an e-book form. It’s titled Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching .

Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email or RSS Reader. And if you missed any of the highlights from the first eight years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below. The list doesn’t include ones from this current year, but you can find those by clicking on the “answers” category found in the sidebar.

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Creative Writing Pedagogies for the Twenty-First Century

In this Book

Creative Writing Pedagogies for the Twenty-First Century

Edited by Alexandria Peary and Tom C. Hunley
Published by: Southern Illinois University Press

Title Page, Copyright
1. Rhetorical Pedagogy
Tom C. Hunley and Sandra Giles
2. Creative Writing and Process Pedagogy
3. Mutuality and the Teaching of the Introductory Creative Writing Course
Patrick Bizzaro
4. A Feminist Approach to Creative Writing Pedagogy
Pamela Annas and Joyce Peseroff
5. Writers Inc.: Writing and Collaborative Practice
Jen Webb and Andrew Melrose
pp. 102-125
6. Writing Center Theory and Pedagogy in the Undergraduate Creative Writing Classroom
Kate Kostelnik
pp. 126-152
7. Service Learning, Literary Citizenship, and the Creative Writing Classroom
Carey E. Smitherman and Stephanie Vanderslice
pp. 153-168
8. Creative Literacy Pedagogy
Steve Healey
pp. 169-193
9. The Pedagogy of Creative Writing across the Curriculum
Alexandria Peary
pp. 194-220
10. A Basic Writing Teacher Teaches Creative Writing
Clyde Moneyhun
pp. 221-242
11. Digital Technologies and Creative Writing Pedagogy
Bronwyn T. Williams
pp. 243-268
12. Ecological Creative Writing
James Engelhardt and Jeremy Schraffenberger
pp. 269-288
pp. 289-292
Contributors
pp. 293-298
pp. 299-310

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The Best Books for Teaching High School Writing

Writing for Learning and the Love of It

“…up until around a week ago I had never found much joy doing research for an essay and inputting information from a source into my writing. That is until I wrote my first essay in my college writing class… it was the first time I had a feeling of joy and wasn’t just ‘getting it over with'" (College English student reflection essay)

Books for Renewing Purpose and Vision for Writing

Books to Help You Empower Writers

Books to Think About the Big Picture: Philosophy for Learning, for Life

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A Dozen Book Recommendations for New Writing Teachers

Ruth and I posed for a couple of pics last night after dinner.

Somewhere between the main course and dessert, Ruth and I got to talking about writing last night. (Shocker, right?!!?) We began talking about book recommendations for teachers who are new to writing workshop. What would we recommend if we could only choose ten books? We threw out a few titles, but didn’t make it all the way to ten. Probably because a two year-old with curly hair needed our attention. 🙂

What would be ten books that I’d recommend to someone who was getting ready to teach writing workshop for the first time? What would get them ready to teach writing well if they wanted to read ten titles over the summer? How could I choose?

My professional library is brimming with incredible texts about all aspects of the teaching of writing. Most are focused on upper elementary writing, though there are a few primary and secondary titles mixed-in. Many are content-specific (e.g., memoir, poetry, persuasive writing). Quite a few are for teachers who’ve been teaching writing workshop for awhile. It’s hard to pick just ten titles from all of the professional books out there since there is so much smart thinking in the literacy world!

I couldn’t choose ten because I wanted to include a book on the Common Core and a book that will help teachers become better writers. Therefore, since it was a self-imposed challenge, I went ahead and selected a dozen books I would hand to someone who was new to teaching writing. Some of these are books that have been around awhile that I used to require my student teachers to read excerpts of before I’d allow them to take over teaching writing workshop. All of the books I put on my list are part of the canon of great writing workshop literature without being too focused on particular content. While it is unrealistic that someone would read and internalize the contents of all of these books in one summer, I think this list is a starting point for new teachers.

That said, the list that follows is just my recommendations. I’d love to know which books from my list you’d recommend to new teachers and/or what books you might suggest that aren’t on my list. Please leave a comment with your recommendations. Or, better yet, if you have a blog, write a post about your own recommendations and link it to this one!

How’s It Going? A Practical Guide to Conferring with Student Writers by Carl Anderson (2000) — Whenever I consult with teachers about conferring, I’m always quoting the “Conferring Guy.” New teachers need to know the work of Carl Anderson who I’ve been lucky enough to learn from twice during the TCRWP Writing Institutes. How’s It Going? is the starting point for teachers who want to learn how to confer with their students in a meaningful way.
Mentor Author, Mentor Texts: Short Texts, Craft Notes, and Practical Classroom Uses by Ralph Fletcher (2011) — Ralph’s book was required reading for my graduate students when I taught a course on using children’s literature to teach writing. He provides teachers with a flexible structure for examining texts critically so they can teach students how to adopt texts and authors as mentors. (Learn more about this book by clicking here to read a blog post I wrote about it.)
Notebook Know-How: Strategies for the Writer’s Notebook by Aimee Buckner (2005) — This book changed the way I used writer’s notebooks in my classroom, which thereby transformed the way I taught writing workshop! It is the go-to book for learning how to get kids writing regularly in their writer’s notebook through all stages of the writing process. Buckner even provides readers with rubrics they can adapt to grade notebooks (which is a hard thing to put a grade on!).
Pathways to the Common Core: Accelerating Achievement by Lucy Calkins, Mary Ehrenworth, and Christopher Lehman (2012) — This book helped me better understand the argument, informational, and narrative writing standards. The authors teach readers how to read and interpret the CCSS so teachers can help students meet the standards. Furthermore, the book continually reminds teachers to draw upon their own and their colleagues’ expertise to create curriculum rather than using someone else’s prescribed curriculum as a way to help students meet the standards. ( Click here to read a full review I wrote about this book.)
Practical Punctuation: Lessons on Rule Making and Rule Breaking in Elementary Writing by Dan Feigelson (2008) — A few years ago, the school I taught at needed to transform the way students learned conventions. There are lots of books about this topic out there, but Practical Punctuation was the one that resonated most with me. This book helped us create meaningful lessons (READ: no worksheets!) about punctuation so the rules would stick with students. Furthermore, it taught me that punctuation is not an editing tool, it’s a crafting tool , which in turn helped me revise the way I thought about punctuation.
Smarter Charts: Optimizing an Instructional Staple to Create Independent Readers and Writers by Marjorie Martinelli and Kristine Mraz (2012) — This book is supposed to be for K-2 teachers, but quite frankly, I think it’s a useful resource for all elementary school teachers. Charts are not classroom decorations, they’re teaching tools. The authors help teachers learn how to create charts that are learning tools in writing and reading. Plus, they have a great blog dedicated to the same mission. ( Click here to read my review of Smarter Charts .)
Talking, Drawing, Writing: Lessons for Our Youngest Writers by Martha Horn and Mary Ellen Giacobbe (2007) — When I return to the classroom in a few years, I intend to go back as a 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade teacher. But , if for some reason I end up teaching little ones, I will reread this book like it’s the Bible. Reading Talking, Drawing, Writing helped me gain a better understanding of the very important work Kindergarten teachers do to lay the foundations of writing. Also, this book gave me insight into the ways I can foster oral storytelling and drawing at home so my daughter can make a smooth transition to writing when she’s ready.
The Art of Teaching Writing: New Edition by Lucy McCormick Calkins (1994) — This book is a classic. It provides teachers with the fundamentals for teaching writing well. If you want to learn from Lucy Calkins, then read this book because reading her words will make you feel as though you’re studying with her one-to-one.
The No-Nonsense Guide to Teaching Writing: Strategies, Structures, and Solutions by Judy Davis and Sharon Hill (2003) — This book allows readers to get an overview for how to run writing workshop. The text is informative and easy to read. The appendix is a goldmine of forms teachers can adapt to meet their students’ needs. When I was new to workshop, this was a book I referenced again and again.
The Revision Toolbox: Teaching Techniques That Work by Georgia Heard (2002) — Kids won’t dread revision if you teach them the strategies in this book. Georgia Heard makes revision fun (Yes, FUN!) in this book I dipped in and out of many times in my teaching career. (In fact, I borrowed it from my school’s PD room so many times, I finally went out and bought it since I didn’t want to be a hog.)
Word Nerds: Teaching All Students to Learn and Love Vocabulary by Brenda J. Overturf, Leslie H. Montgomery, and Margot Holmes Smith (2013) — Teaching vocabulary well takes a lot of thoughtful work on a teacher’s part. That said, when vocabulary is taught in a fun way, it holds meaning and value to students. Plus, building students’ vocabularies positively impacts their writing. (I reviewed this book last week. Click here to read more about it now.)
Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark (2006) — Teachers of writing must be writers themselves! In order to become a stronger writer, you , too, need a writing teacher. Let Roy Peter Clark be your teacher! With 50 strategies, you can implement one a week (or every two weeks) in order to improve as a writer.

So, that’s my list of books that I would give to someone who was getting ready to teach writing workshop to elementary school kids for the first time. What do you think?

Published by Stacey Shubitz

I am a literacy consultant who focuses on writing workshop. I've been working with K-6 teachers and students since 2009. Prior to that, I was a fourth and fifth-grade teacher in New York City and Rhode Island. I'm the author of Craft Moves (Stenhouse Publishers, 2016) and the co-author of Jump Into Writing (Zaner-Bloser, 2021), Welcome to Writing Workshop (Stenhouse Publishers, 2019), and Day By Day (Stenhouse, 2010). I live in Central Pennsylvania with my husband and children. In my free time, I enjoy swimming, doing Pilates, cooking, baking, making ice cream, and reading novels. View all posts by Stacey Shubitz

29 thoughts on “ A Dozen Book Recommendations for New Writing Teachers ”

I really liked Word Nerds, great to see it on this list. I found it practical and energetic. Also agree with the comment to add “Children Want to Write,” Don Graves words are as true today as always. LOVE this post! Thanks!

This is great to read everyone’s recommendations — it’s like being at SBUX talking books. Love it! I’d add Shanna Schwartz’s “A Quick Guide to Making Your Teaching Stick” which is part of the TCRWP Workshop Help Desk K-5 series. It’s a quick, easy read with many practical suggestions to strengthen writers’ repertoire of strategies they’ll remember from your engaging minilesson forward… I’d also add “The Writing Workshop: Working Through the Hard Parts (And They’re All Hard Parts)” coauthored by Katie Wood Ray and Lester Laminack. Chapters highlight each part of workshop, as well as how to set up, plan for, and teach in a WW. Two must-haves for anyone growing a writing workshop!

After pondering this a few days, I decided to write a blog post about it. http://jaanaswritingblog.blogspot.com/2013/07/writing-books-for-writing-teachers.html

Ralph Fletcher’s Writing Workshop book is fabulous also!

As an author of children’s books and a writing mentor, I am looking forward to checking out some of these selections. Thanks for the recommendations!

A Fresh Look at Writing by Donald Graves and any other book by him. RIP!

I love In Pictures and In Words by Katie Wood Ray…it’s a nice companion to Talking, Drawing, Writing that you have on the list, but the 50 illustration techniques apply to upper grades as well. I also love Already Ready by Katie Wood Ray as well. Janet Angelillo’s book about punctuation is great, too!

I agree with Marie. For teaching HS students, you can’t go wrong with Kittle and Gallagher. I redesigned my creative writing class using their ideas. Fabulous stuff.

For those who teach secondary students, I LOVE Penny Kittle’s Write Beside Them and also Kelly Gallagher’s new book on mentor texts. 🙂

I’d recommend Study Driven, by Katie Wood Ray. It’s great for developing units of study and helping mentor teachers as writers.

“Guiding Readers and Writers” is a great resource by Fountas & Pinnell for teachers of grades 3-6. It includes lots of practical ideas for getting started with Writing Workshop (along with Reading Workshop and Language & Word Study).

I purchase a copy of Mentor Texts: Teaching Writing Through Children’s Literature, K-6 by Lynne Dorfman and Rose Cappelli for every student teacher as they leave my classroom to begin a journey through writing workshop in their own clasroom. Now I would add their Nonfiction and Poetry books to the collection too! I also like I Can Write Like That!: A Guide to Mentor Texts and Craft Studies for Writers’ Workshop, K-6 by Susan Ehmann and Kellyann Gayer for beginning teachers. Although I realize the benefit in finding my own mentor text examples that supplement my instruction, as a beginning teacher it would have been nice to have a little help saving me endless hours on the library floor reading book after book!

Real Revision by Kate Messner?

After listening to both of you yesterday (A joy for anyone who hasn’t listened to these two brilliant writing coaches) I came home and started reading Lucy Calkin’s Art of Teaching Writing. I figured it would be one to read since my district will be using her Units of Study this coming school year. Thanks to both of you for inspiring me to start writing NOW.

Kelly Gallagher, Write Like This.

Anything by Jeff Anderson is wonderfully practical, and I’d add Donald Murray, The Craft of Revision, and Peter Elbow’s Writing as Power, more for the teachers as a way to explore their own writing and revising and challenge preconceptions about what writing is and how it is taught.

I would have to recommend guru, Lucy Calkin’s book, The Art of Teaching Writing, first. Work from there after getting your feet wet in this very readable gem!

This is a wonderful list! I would add: WRITING TO PERSUADE by Karen Caine ABOUT THE AUTHORS by Katie Wood Ray and Lisa Cleaveland WONDROUS WORDS by Katie Wood Ray EVERYDAY EDITING by Jeff Anderson and of course AWAKENING THE HEART by Georgia Heard – it is important to include a poetry book! Thank you for this – a very pinnable post yet again! xo, a.

Stacey, I think this is a fun activity. Every time I try it, I have different books on the list! It’s hard to narrow it down. You have some I would include, but I’d have a few different ones too. Ruth

I love this list! Some are on my shelf now, waiting to be read and some are well-worn out. As a middle school teacher, I love Kelly Gallagher’s Write Like This and Teaching Adolescent Writers. I would be lost without them! Also Jeff Anderson’s work with craft in Mechanically Inclined and Everyday Editing. My go-tos! Thanks for sharing your list!

What a list . . . .It’s so hard to choose isn’t it. I might also want to include What You Know By Heart by Katie Wood Ray(I almost prefer this book a bit more to Roy Peter Clark because it speaks directly to mining your writing life to fuel your teaching) Although, Clark’s book is great, I think it would be a better fit for someone with a bit more experience teaching writing. Hidden Gems by Katherine Bomer would also be on my list because I think we need to unlearn what we learned early on – silence the critic (but I could be wrong about this as I get older and more and more students will have gone through writing workshops versus how I was taught writing) All the same, I think we need to develop the “eyes to see” what’s beautiful in our kids writing and there is no better mentor for that than Katherine Bomer.

It was SO hard to choose, Ryan! I almost turned the list into top 20, but I had to stop myself. No matter what, everyone is going to have different views based on their professional experiences, as well as their beginnings. As someone who was trained at Teachers College, there are a lot of TCRWP staff members whose books appear on here. (Though as someone who attends institutes, I assume you already noticed that.)

Nancie Atwell: In The Middle and Lessons That Change Writers. I could not imagine teaching writing without these books by my side!

Nanci Atwell’s “Lessons That Change Writers” is the best resource I have come across for teaching writing in the Middle Grades. I cannot believe it is not on this list. http://www.lessonsthatchangewriters.com/

For K and first-About the Authors by Katie Wood Ray

I would include this book:

The text is amazing and the dvd footage is incredible for anyone interested in creating a ww in their classroom.

I think this is a great list. I have about half. I think I have to read Ralph Fletcher’s book this summer. As a writer and a teacher of writing it is critical to strengthen the connections between reading and writing.

Oooh! Great list of resources here. I’m going to share it with my friend who will teaching some writing for the first time this year.

If she’s been teaching writing workshop for awhile, she might want some more topical books that focus on specific content. (Perhaps I’ll write another post with more professional book recommendations soon.)

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Introduction to Creative Writing: For Middle School & High School

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Introduction to Creative Writing: For Middle School & High School Paperback – February 23, 2013

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100 Best Creative Writing Books of All Time

We've researched and ranked the best creative writing books in the world, based on recommendations from world experts, sales data, and millions of reader ratings. Learn more

A Memoir of the Craft

Stephen King | 5.00

Mark Manson I read a bunch of books on writing before I wrote my first book and the two that stuck with me were Stephen King’s book and “On Writing Well” by Zinsser (which is a bit on the technical side). (Source)

Jennifer Rock If you are interested in writing and communication, start with reading and understanding the technical aspects of the craft: The Elements of Style. On Writing Well. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. (Source)

Benjamin Spall [Question: What five books would you recommend to youngsters interested in your professional path?] On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft by Stephen King, [...] (Source)

See more recommendations for this book...

Bird By Bird

Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Anne Lamott | 4.88

Susan Cain I love [this book]. Such a good book. (Source)

Timothy Ferriss Bird by Bird is one of my absolute favorite books, and I gift it to everybody, which I should probably also give to startup founders, quite frankly. A lot of the lessons are the same. But you can get to your destination, even though you can only see 20 feet in front of you. (Source)

Ryan Holiday It was wonderful to read these two provocative books of essays by two incredibly wise and compassionate women. [...] Anne Lamott’s book is ostensibly about the art of writing, but really it too is about life and how to tackle the problems, temptations and opportunities life throws at us. Both will make you think and both made me a better person this year. (Source)

The War of Art

out of 5 stars4,70 | 4.76

James Altucher When a writer or an entrepreneur, or a manager, or an employee, or a…whatever…sits down to get to work, he or she is often met by “the resistance”. The excuses that come up: I can’t do this. I am too old. I don’t have enough money. I’m scared. “The War of Art” is the guide to getting through that block. The comfort zone is papered up and cemented shut by our excuses. Learn to blast through that... (Source)

Seth Godin Also hard to find on audio. I find Steve's voice to be fascinating, and even before I knew him, I was fascinated by listening to him speak his own work. The War of Art is one of those books, at least for me when I finally was exposed to it, I said, 'Why wasn't I informed? Why did it take this long for this book to land on my desk?'... You need to be clear with yourself about what you are afraid... (Source)

Brian Koppelman Talks about resistance. (Source)

The Elements of Style

William Jr. Strunk | 4.57

Tobi Lütke [My] most frequently gifted book is [this book] because I like good writing. (Source)

Bill Nye This is my guide. I accept that I’ll never write anything as good as the introductory essay by [the author]. It’s brilliant. (Source)

The Hero With a Thousand Faces

Joseph Campbell | 4.57

The first popular work to combine the spiritual and psychological insights of modern psychoanalysis with the archetypes of world mythology, the book creates a roadmap for navigating the frustrating path of contemporary life. Examining heroic myths in the light of modern psychology, it considers not only the patterns and stages of mythology but also its relevance to our lives today--and to the life of any person seeking a fully realized existence. Myth, according to Campbell, is the projection of a culture's dreams onto a large screen; Campbell's book, like Star Wars , the...

Ray Dalio The book I’d give [every graduating senior in college or high school] would be [...] Joseph Campbell’s 'Hero of a Thousand Faces'. It's little bit dense but it’s so rich, so it’s a good one. (Source)

Darren Aronofsky [I'm] totally part of his cult. Because I believe in that hero’s journey. (Source)

Kyle Russell Book 28 Lesson: Embedded in human psychology (and the resulting symbolism we find compelling) is a wish for our struggles to be meaningful, for our suffering to have value, for our effort to pay off for ourselves and those we love - and to then be recognized for it. https://t.co/lWgr4k7d8Y (Source)

On Writing Well

The Classic Guide To Writing Nonfiction

William Zinsser | 4.55

Tim O'Reilly On Writing Well, by William Zinsser. I wouldn't say this book influenced me, since my principles of writing were established long before I read it. However, it does capture many things that I believe about effective writing. (Source)

Derek Sivers Great blunt advice about writing better non-fiction. So inspiring. (Source)

The Writer's Journey

Mythic Structure for Writers

Christopher Vogler | 4.50

Darren Aronofsky It’s the Bible for screenwriters. I think it’s the best book on how to write a screenplay ever written. It helped me get through so many roadblocks as a writer. (Source)

Writing Down the Bones

Freeing the Writer Within

Natalie Goldberg | 4.47

Brie Code @gamesandbowties Oh I love that book! And am intrigued by mystic poetry and would love to see it on Twitter 😇 (Source)

Writing Tools

50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer

Roy Peter Clark | 4.47

The Artist's Way

Julia Cameron | 4.46

Anand C STARTING FROM AUTHENTICITY: by observing, showing humility and being grateful - I started being open to what’s in the sub-conscious more (30+ sessions in). Speaking your truth is a powerful result of this. One great book to help explore this. https://t.co/sOAgAHhWsO (Source)

Emma Gannon Instead of all these fast paced books saying: ‘Here’s how to be amazing, here’s how to get a side hustle, here’s how to hustle, hustle, hustle.’ This is the total opposite. It’s about slowing right down and connecting with yourself again. (Source)

Don't have time to read the top Creative Writing books of all time? Read Shortform summaries.

Shortform summaries help you learn 10x faster by:

Being comprehensive: you learn the most important points in the book
Cutting out the fluff: you focus your time on what's important to know
Interactive exercises: apply the book's ideas to your own life with our educators' guidance.

The Emotion Thesaurus

A Writer's Guide to Character Expression

Becca Puglisi | 4.38

Save the Cat

The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need

Blake Snyder | 4.37

Eric Weinstein [Eric Weinstein recommended this book on Twitter.] (Source)

Bill Liao The human world occurs in language so best get good at it! (Source)

Neville Medhora It takes you through 11 different 'archetypes' of screenplays you can write, and the exact elements each needs to be a great story. (Source)

Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

Robert McKee | 4.35

Gotham Writers' Workshop: Writing Fiction

The Practical Guide From New York's Acclaimed Creative Writing School

Gotham Writers' Workshop | 4.33

The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction

Jeff VanderMeer, Jeremy Zerfoss | 4.33

Becoming a Writer

Dorothea Brande, John Gardner | 4.33

Sophie King This book will help you work out what you can do with your own book. (Source)

Andrew Cowan Because creative writing has now taken off and has become this very widespread academic discipline it is beginning to acquire its own canon of key works and key texts. This is one of the oldest of them. It’s a book that almost anyone who teaches creative writing will have read. They will probably have read it because some fundamentals are explained and I think the most important one is Brande’s... (Source)

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers

How to Edit Yourself Into Print

Renni Browne, Dave King | 4.32

Alina Varlanuta My professional path – copywriting – somehow intertwines with my unprofessional (hahaha) path – writing so I would recommend reading literature for both. Somehow reading and writing are two ways of doing the same thing: storytelling (even when you read you tell yourself a story in your own voice, bringing your personal emotion and empathy to the story you’re reading). The only difference is that... (Source)

Plot & Structure

Techniques and Exercises for Crafting a Plot That Grips Readers from Start to Finish

James Scott Bell | 4.30

Zen in the Art of Writing

Ray Bradbury | 4.27

Maria Popova In Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You, Ray Bradbury — acclaimed author, dystopian novelist, hater of symbolism — shares not only his wisdom and experience in writing, but also his contagious excitement for the craft. Blending practical how-to’s on everything from finding your voice to negotiating with editors with snippets and glimpses of the author’s own career,... (Source)

Steering the Craft

Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew

Ursula K. Le Guin | 4.27

Reading Like a Writer

A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them

Francine Prose | 4.27

Steal Like an Artist

10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

Austin Kleon | 4.26

Seth Godin Breezy and fun and yes, scary. Scary because it calls your bluff. (Source)

Ryan Holiday Part of ambition is modeling yourself after those you’d like to be like. Austin’s philosophy of ruthlessly stealing and remixing the greats might sound appalling at first but it is actually the essence of art. You learn by stealing, you become creative by stealing, you push yourself to be better by working with these materials. Austin is a fantastic artist, but most importantly he communicates... (Source)

Chase Jarvis Super small, fast read. (Source)

Outlining Your Novel

Map Your Way to Success

K. M. Weiland | 4.25

Writing Fiction for Dummies

Randy Ingermanson | 4.23

Characters and Viewpoint (Elements of Fiction Writing)

Orson Scott Car | 4.22

Wired for Story

The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence

Lisa Cron | 4.22

2,000 to 10,000

How to Write Faster, Write Better, and Write More of What You Love

Rachel Aaro | 4.21

Creating Character Arcs

The Masterful Author's Guide to Uniting Story Structure, Plot, and Character Development (Helping Writers Become Authors Book 7)

K.M. Weiland | 4.21

Powerful Character Arcs Create Powerful Stories

Have you written a story with an exciting concept and interesting characters—but it just isn’t grabbing the attention of readers or agents? It’s time to look deeper into the story beats that create realistic and compelling character arcs. Internationally published, award-winning novelist K.M. Weiland shares her acclaimed method for achieving memorable and moving character arcs in every book you write.

By applying the foundation of the Three-Act Story Structure and then...

By applying the foundation of the Three-Act Story Structure and then delving even deeper into the psychology of realistic and dynamic human change, Weiland offers a beat-by-beat checklist of character arc guidelines that flexes to fit any type of story.

This comprehensive book will teach you:

Gaining an understanding of how to write character arcs is a game-changing moment in any author’s pursuit of the craft.

Bring your characters to unforgettable and realistic life—and take your stories from good to great!

Writing Fiction

A Guide to Narrative Craft

Janet Burroway, Elizabeth Stuckey-French | 4.20

Story Engineering

Character Development, Story Concept, Scene Construction

Larry Brooks | 4.19

The Art of Fiction

Notes on Craft for Young Writers

John Gardner | 4.19

The Anatomy of Story

22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller

John Truby | 4.19

Writing Magic

Creating Stories that Fly

Gail Carson Levine | 4.19

The Positive Trait Thesaurus

A Writer's Guide to Character Attributes

Angela Ackerman, Becca Puglisi | 4.18

The Art of Dramatic Writing

Its Basis in the Creative Interpretation of Human Motives

Lajos Egri | 4.17

Seth Rogen Very referential to certain plays. (Source)

The Negative Trait Thesaurus

A Writer's Guide to Character Flaws

Angela Ackerman, Becca Puglisi | 4.17

The Emotional Wound Thesaurus

A Writer's Guide to Psychological Trauma

Becca Puglisi | 4.16

Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint

Techniques and Exercises for Crafting Dynamic Characters and Effective Viewpoints

Nancy Kress | 4.16

•Choose and execute the best...

•Choose and execute the best point of view for your story •Create three-dimensional and believable characters •Develop your characters' emotions •Create realistic love, fight, and death scenes •Use frustration to motivate your characters and drive your story

Structuring Your Novel

Essential Keys for Writing an Outstanding Story

K. M. Weiland | 4.16

Creative Living Beyond Fear

Elizabeth Gilbert | 4.16

Chelsea Frank I read everything with an open mind, often challenging myself by choosing books with an odd perspective or religious/spiritual views. These books do not reflect my personal feelings but are books that helped shape my perspective on life, love, and happiness. (Source)

Story Genius

How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel (Before You Waste Three Years Writing 327 Pages That Go Nowhere)

Lisa Cron | 4.16

Back to Creative Writing School

Bridget Whelan | 4.15

Writing the Breakout Novel

Donald Maass | 4.15

Where the Wild Things Are

Maurice Sendak | 4.15

Richard Branson Today is World Book Day, a wonderful opportunity to address this #ChallengeRichard sent in by Mike Gonzalez of New Jersey: Make a list of your top 65 books to read in a lifetime. (Source)

Barack Obama During a trip to a public library in Washington’s Anacostia neighborhood in 2015, Obama shared some of his childhood favorites with a group of young students. He also read (and acted out) Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak to kids at the White House in 2014. (Source)

Martha Stewart In this photo, Jimmy Fallon and I enjoy slurping Eggs of Newt together for Season-5 of “The Martha Stewart Show." I am dressed as "Queen of the Wild Things" inspired by the beloved Maurice Sendak children's book, "Where the Wild Things Are." https://t.co/1ZBqXEW7dC (Source)

Into the Woods

A Five Act Journey Into Story

out of 5 stars31 | 4.15

Save the Cat! Writes a Novel

The Last Book on Novel Writing You'll Ever Need

Jessica Brody | 4.14

How to Write a Damn Good Novel

A Step-by-Step No Nonsense Guide to Dramatic Storytelling

James N. Frey | 4.14

Scene & Structure (Elements of Fiction Writing)

Jack M. Bickham | 4.14

On Becoming a Novelist

John Gardner, Raymond Carver | 4.14

Andrew Cowan This is another one of the classics. He was quite a successful novelist in the States, but possibly an even more successful teacher of creative writing. The short story writer and poet Raymond Carver, for instance, was one of his students. And he died young in a motorcycle accident when he was 49. There are two classic works by him. One is this book, On Becoming a Novelist, and the other is The... (Source)

Stein on Writing

A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

Sol Stein | 4.14

Letters to a Young Poet

Rainer Maria Rilke | 4.13

Todd Henry A book of mentorship for young artists. (Source)

Estella Ng Letters to a Young Poet - it is everything. [...] This line in Letters to a Young Poet “If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches" is an important one to me. I constantly go back to this to evaluate if I have been living a full life. (Source)

Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One & Never Lets Them Go

Les Edgerton | 4.13

*The first and only fiction-writing book that focuses exclusively on beginnings--no other book on the market addresses story beginnings in a comprehensive manner

Agents and editors agree: Improper story beginnings are the single biggest barrier to publication. Why? If a novel or short story has a bad beginning, then no one will keep reading....

Agents and editors agree: Improper story beginnings are the single biggest barrier to publication. Why? If a novel or short story has a bad beginning, then no one will keep reading. It's just that simple. Hooked provides readers with a detailed understanding of what a beginning must include (setup, backstory, the inciting incident, etc.); instruction on how to successfully develop the story problem; tips on how to correct common beginning mistakes; exclusive insider advice from agents, acquiring book editors, and literary journal editors; and much more.

The Writing Life

Annie Dillard | 4.13

How Not to Write a Novel

200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid Them—A Misstep-by-Misstep Guide

Howard Mittelmark, Sandra Newman | 4.13

How to Write Dazzling Dialogue

The Fastest Way to Improve Any Manuscript

James Scott Bel | 4.12

Take Off Your Pants! Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing

Libbie Hawke | 4.12

Conflict and Suspense (Elements of Fiction Writing)

James Scott Bell | 4.11

Conflict pulls readers into a story and suspense carries them along until its conclusion. Expert author of over 15 thrillers, James Scott Bell offers proven techniques that help writers craft fiction that their readers won?t be able to put down. Learn how to believably weave conflict and suspense into a story, how to pace your story and keep the pressure on throughout, and how to bring it all to a gripping conclusion.

The First Five Pages

A Writer's Guide To Staying Out of the Rejection Pile

Noah Lukeman | 4.11

Many writers spend the majority of their time devising their plot. What they don't seem to understand is that if their execution -- if their prose -- isn't up to par, their plot may not even be considered.

Write. Publish. Repeat. (The No-Luck-Required Guide to Self-Publishing Success)

Sean M. Platt and Johnny Truan | 4.10

In 2013, Johnny B. Truant and Sean Platt published 1.5 million words and made their full-time livings as indie authors. In Write. Publish. Repeat., they tell you exactly how they did it: how they created over 15 independent franchises across 50+ published works, how they turned their art into a logical, sustainable business, and how any independent author can do the same to build a sustainable, profitable career with their writing.

Write. Publish. Repeat. explains the current self-publishing landscape and...

Write. Publish. Repeat. explains the current self-publishing landscape and covers the truths and myths about what it means to be an indie author now and in the foreseeable future. It explains how to create books your readers will love and will want to return to again and again. Write. Publish. Repeat. details expert methods for building story worlds, characters, and plots, understanding your market (right down to your ideal reader), using the best tools possible to capture your draft, and explains proven best practices for editing. The book also discusses covers, titles, formatting, pricing, and publishing to multiple platforms, plus a bit on getting your books into print (and why that might not be a good idea!). But most importantly, Write. Publish. Repeat. details the psychology-driven marketing plan that Sean and Johnny built to shape their stories into "products" that readers couldn't help but be drawn into -- thus almost automatically generating sales -- and explores ways that smart, business-minded writers can do the same to future-proof their careers.

This book is not a formula with an easy path to follow. It is a guidebook that will help you build a successful indie publishing career, no matter what type of writer you are ... so long as you're the type who's willing to do the work.

James Altucher Sean Platt has a good book that just came out about writing many books. I recommend it. “Write. Publish. Repeat.” I think Sean has published over 50 books. I don’t know because he uses pseudonyms as well. (Source)

Kaci Lambe Kai On the same flight, I read Write. Publish. Repeat. by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant. They made it seem so easy to become an author and a creative. It's as easy as the title. Create a thing. Put it out into the world. Do it all over again. I got off that flight a changed human being. I knew I wanted to make my living as an independent creative in which I create works, release them, and obtain... (Source)

The Ode Less Travelled

Unlocking the Poet Within

Stephen Fry | 4.08

Fry is a wonderfully engaging teacher and writer of poetry himself, and he explains the various elements of poetry in simple terms, without condescension. His enjoyable exercises and witty insights introduce the concepts of Metre, Rhyme, Form, Diction, and Poetics. Aspiring poets will learn to write a sonnet, on ode, a villanelle, a ballad, and a haiku, among others. Along the way, he introduces us to poets we've heard of, but never read. The Ode Less Travelled is a lively celebration of poetry that makes even the most reluctant reader want to pick up a pencil and give it a try. BACKCOVER: Advanced Praise: Delightfully erudite, charming and soundly pedagogical guide to poetic form Fry has created an invaluable and highly enjoyable reference book. Publishers Weekly A smart, sane and entertaining return to the basics If you like Fry's comic manner this book has a lot of charm People entirely fresh to the subject could do worse than stick with his cheerful leadership. The Telegraph (UK) intelligent and informative, a worthy enterprise well executed. Observer (UK) "If you learn how to write a sonnet, and Fry shows you how, you may or may not make a poem. But you will unlock the stored wisdom of the form itself." Grey Gowrie, The Spectator (UK) intelligent and informative, a worthy enterprise well executed. Observer (UK)

The Forest for the Trees

Betsy Lerner | 4.08

Andrew Cowan Yes, she was an editor at several major American publishing houses, such as Simon & Schuster. She went on to become an agent, and also did an MFA in poetry before that, so she came through the US creative writing process and understands where many writers are coming from. (Source)

No Plot? No Problem!

A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days

Chris Baty | 4.08

Daily Rituals

How Artists Work

Mason Currey | 4.08

Alok Kejriwal Daily Rituals - Book Review "Sooner or later, Pritchett writes, "great men turn to be alike. They never stop working. They never lose a minute. It's very depressing". Daily Rituals is a remarkable book. It chronicles the daily habits of artists, writers, composers.. see note https://t.co/tMUhBKmzkI (Source)

Bobby Voicu Mason Currey’s "Daily Rituals" will show you how 161 of the most creative and inspiring minds in the world work. This book’s great to demolish the myth that artists don’t have a routine and they’re just waiting for inspiration to hit them. As David Brook… https://t.co/4Owd29TQEm (Source)

B. J. Novak B. J. also recommended Daily Rituals by Mason Currey for anyone who would enjoy seeing the daily routines of legends like Steve Jobs, Charles Darwin, and Charles Dickens. "It is so reassuring to see that everyone has their own system, and how dysfunctional a lot of them are". (Source)

Divergent (Divergent, #1)

Veronica Roth | 4.08

The Foundations of Screenwriting

Syd Field | 4.07

The Fire in Fiction

Passion, Purpose and Techniques to Make Your Novel Great

Donald Maass | 4.07

The Writing Strategies Book

Your Everything Guide to Developing Skilled Writers

Jennifer Serravallo | 4.06

The Story Grid

What Good Editors Know

Shawn Coyne and Steven Pressfiel | 4.06

Revision & Self-Editing

Techniques for Transforming Your First Draft Into a Finished Novel

James Scott Scott Bell | 4.06

•Write a cleaner first draft right out of the gate using Bell's plotting principles •Get the most out of revision and self-editing techniques by honing your skills with detailed exercises •Systematically revise a completed draft using the ultimate revision checklist that talks you through the core story elements

Spilling Ink

A Young Writer's Handbook

Ellen Potter, Anne Mazer, et al. | 4.06

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

Judi Barrett, Ronald Barrett | 4.06

Travis Herzog I absolutely LOVED this book as a kid, and I still love reading it today as an adult. @Ginger_Zee and @RobMarciano, I challenge you to post your own "shelfie" (selfie with a book) and @Disney will donate up to 1 million books for kids in need! #magicofstorytelling https://t.co/zEwuZpf0zc (Source)

The Rural Setting Thesaurus

A Writer's Guide to Personal and Natural Places

Angela Ackerman, Becca Puglisi | 4.06

Emotion Amplifiers

Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglis | 4.05

Techniques of the Selling Writer

Dwight V. Swain | 4.05

The Right to Write

An Invitation and Initiation Into the Writing Life

Julia Cameron | 4.05

How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy

Orson Scott Card | 4.05

Still Writing

The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life

Dani Shapiro | 4.05

Writing 21st Century Fiction

High Impact Techniques for Exceptional Storytelling

Donald Maass | 4.04

Ernest Hemingway on Writing

Larry W. Phillips | 4.04

Maria Popova Ernest Hemingway famously maintained that it was bad luck to talk about writing. Yet, over the course of his career, he frequently wrote about writing in his novels and short stories, his letters to editors, friends, critics, and lovers, in interviews, and even in articles specifically commissioned on the subject. In Ernest Hemingway on Writing, editor Larry W. Phillips culls the finest,... (Source)

Imaginative Writing

Janet Burroway | 4.04

Eats, Shoots & Leaves

The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

Lynne Truss | 4.04

Write to Market

Deliver a Book that Sells (Write Faster, Write Smart, #3)

Chris Fox | 4.03

Insurgent (Divergent, #2)

Veronica Roth | 4.03

The Science of Storytelling

out of 5 stars10 | 4.03

‘One of my absolute favourite writers’ Decca Aitkenhead

Who would we be without stories?

Stories mould who we are, from our character to our cultural identity. They drive us to act out our dreams and ambitions, and shape our politics and beliefs. We use them to construct our relationships, to keep order in our law courts, to interpret events in our newspapers and social media. Storytelling is an essential part of what makes us human.

There have been many attempts to understand what makes a good story – from Joseph Campbell’s...

There have been many attempts to understand what makes a good story – from Joseph Campbell’s well-worn theories about myth and archetype to recent attempts to crack the ‘Bestseller Code’. But few have used a scientific approach. This is curious, for if we are to truly understand storytelling in its grandest sense, we must first come to understand the ultimate storyteller – the human brain.

In this scalpel-sharp, thought-provoking book, Will Storr demonstrates how master storytellers manipulate and compel us, leading us on a journey from the Hebrew scriptures to Mr Men, from Booker Prize-winning literature to box set TV. Applying dazzling psychological research and cutting-edge neuroscience to the foundations of our myths and archetypes, he shows how we can use these tools to tell better stories – and make sense of our chaotic modern world.

Hannah Fry This is the intro to The Science of Storytelling by @wstorr. Easily the best book I've read this year. https://t.co/WzpSWlzVGi https://t.co/RX9kdQANeB (Source)

Adam Rutherford Tomorrow night at @WaterstonesTCR I’ll be in conversation with @wstorr about his brilliant book The Science of Storytelling - a book that has made me change how I write. Come. https://t.co/mbQpHfwysV (Source)

The Art of War for Writers

Fiction Writing Strategies, Tactics, and Exercises

James Scott Bell | 4.03

The Sense of Style

The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century

Steven Pinker | 4.03

Writing Alone and with Others

Pat Schneider, Peter Elbow | 4.02

The Urban Setting Thesaurus

A Writer's Guide to City Spaces

Angela Ackerman, Becca Puglisi | 4.02

Living the Writer's Life

Natalie Goldberg | 4.02

The Creative Writing Coursebook

Forty Authors Share Advice and Exercises for Fiction and Poetry

Julia Bell, Paul Magrs, Andrew Motion | 4.02

Getting Into Character

Seven Secrets a Novelist Can Learn from Actors

Brandilyn Collins | 4.02

GMC: Goal, Motivation and Conflict

The Building Blocks of Good Fiction

Debra Dixon | 4.01

The Modern Library Writer's Workshop

A Guide to the Craft of Fiction

Stephen Koch | 4.01

Beginnings, Middles & Ends (Elements of Fiction Writing)

Nancy Kress | 4.01

Old Friend from Far Away

The Practice of Writing Memoir

Natalie Goldberg | 4.01

Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers

Anne Bernays, Pamela Painter | 4.01

Description & Setting

Ron Rozelle | 4.01

The Art of the Novel

Milan Kundera | 4.00

Make a Scene

Crafting a Powerful Story One Scene at a Time

Jordan E. Rosenfeld | 4.00

Story Trumps Structure

How to Write Unforgettable Fiction by Breaking the Rules

Steven James and Donald Maas | 4.00

29 Must-Have Professional Development Books for Teachers

by AuthorAmy

Summer is a time for recharging, but it can also be a time for professional development. The following is a list of books with the lifelong learner in mind. There’s a little something for everyone – books on classroom management, talking about race, improving literacy, teaching during the digital age, and more. Most professional development books are written with all grade levels and subject areas in mind, but the more targeted books have been noted in the descriptions.

Just so you know, we may get a small share of the sales made through the Amazon affiliate links on this page.

1. The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

by George Couros

Get it HERE .

Couros posits that students first enter schools curious and full of wonder. He suggests that traditional models of education, with scripted and scheduled curriculum, kill this natural innovative mindset students bring to school. Instead of valuing compliance, Couros writes, students should be taught to cultivate an innovative mind. In order to do this, educators must also become innovative thinkers – and this book shows you how.

2. Teaching with Intention: Defining Beliefs, Aligning Practice, Taking Action, K-5

by Debbie Miller

Professional development books for teachers: Teaching with Intention: Defining Beliefs, Aligning Practice, Taking Action, K-5

Author and teacher Debbie Miller believes that intentional, effective teaching can only occur when an educator has a strong set of intentional beliefs that outlines their education philosophy. In Teaching with Intention , the author shows readers how to deliberately define these beliefs and then how to align those beliefs with classroom instruction.

3. Blending Genre, Altering Style: Writing Multigenre Papers

by Tom Romano

Professional development books for teachers: Blending Genre, Altering Style: Writing Multigenre Papers

Tom Romano is passionate about using multigenre papers, in which students demonstrate their knowledge of a subject by writing in multiple genres. He breaks down the process of writing such a paper with concrete instructions and examples that span from upper elementary to high school. The multigenre format is ideal for any teacher who assigns essays or research papers.

4. Teaching When the World is on Fire

by Lisa Delpit

Delpit knows that tackling difficult topics in the classroom is, well, difficult. But, an effective educator can’t shy away from politics, current events such as Black Lives Matter, issues of sexual assault in the media, and more. These are part of the world we live in, and Delpit believes that an effective educator knows how to address these delicate topics in the classroom in a constructive way. She brings together the voices of experts and writes a book that can be used K-12.

5. An Urgency of Teachers: The Work of Critical Digital Pedagogy

by Jesse Stommel and Sean Michael Morris

This is a collection of essays in which the authors explore the world of online learning. Sometimes, it’s a critique of a system that turns a teacher into nothing more than a proctor. Sometimes, it’s an exploration into ways in which digital technologies can enhance our practices.

6. Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities

by John Warner

College writing teacher John Warner notes that, bluntly, today’s college kids cannot write. They can apply a formula like the five-paragraph essay but gone from their writing is the vigor and creativity and verve that should indicate a student grappling to communicate new knowledge. He includes a blueprint for fixing what he believes ails the system.

7. Digital Citizenship in Action: Empowering Students to Engage in Online Communities

by Kristen Mattson

In Digital Citizenship , Mattson writes that the most powerful aspect of digital learning of often overlooked – that of the community it can help build. She encourages educators to leverage today’s modern technology to teach social justice and work toward equity.

8. unSpun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation

by Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Hall Jamieson

While this is not strictly a professional development book for teachers, unSpun is nevertheless essential reading. In it, the creators of FactCheck.org teach readers how to separate out fact from fiction, how to identify misinformation on the internet. In an era when we will be returning to school amidst a presidential election and a pandemic, unSpun is a helpful classroom tool.

9. Teach Like a PIRATE: Increase Student Engagement, Boost Your Creativity, and Transform Your Life as an Educator

by Dave Burgess

Professional development books for teachesr: Teach Like a PIRATE: Increase Student Engagement, Boost Your Creativity, and Transform Your Life as an Educator

While there isn’t the swashbuckling that could be expected from the title (PIRATE is an acronym), Burgess walks readers through his teaching methods. Burgess, who was a high school social studies teacher before becoming a full-time education speaker, writes his book like a motivational speech. There are lots to “pump you up,” along with some ideas for teaching hooks, and brainstorming ideas to help boost your creativity. Secondary ELA, social studies, and foreign language teachers will get the most out of this book.

10. For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood … and the Rest of Y’all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education

by Christopher Emdin

Christopher Emdin writes first about his experience growing up as a young person of color. He writes about how he felt invisible in his schools. Then, he applies this perspective plus decades of award-winning teaching and gives readers practical advice about how to teach in urban schools.

11. Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students

by Zaretta Hammond

Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students

In Culturally Responsive Teaching & The Brain , author Zaretta Hammond applies neuroscientific research to the concept of culturally responsive teaching. She includes ten “key moves” for teachers to make to help students in today’s culturally diverse classrooms.

12. Vintage Innovation: Leveraging Retro Tools and Classic Ideas to Design Deeper Learning Experiences

by John Spencer

This book defines innovation as “better as different” as opposed to “new and flashy.” The author makes a clear case that teachers should compose their toolkits from teaching strategies that work, whether those strategies are vintage or cutting-edge. He shows teachers how to field test new strategies, too.

13. An Educators Guide to STEAM

by Cassie Quigley and Danielle Herro

This book is geared toward K-8 classrooms and examines the world of STEAM (as opposed to STEM ). The authors include ample examples of STEAM at work in the classroom and include the perspective of many experts in the field.

14. 180 Days: Two Teachers and the Quest to Engage and Empower Adolescents

by Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher

Gallagher and Kittle are both award-winning, veteran language arts teachers, but they teach in dramatically different schools. Gallagher teaches in California; Kittle in New Hampshire. They collaborate for a year to find the best literacy practices that work for all students. This book is the result of the year of collaboration.

15. Cultivating Genius

by Gholdy Muhammad

Professional development books for teachers: Cultivating Genius

Muhammad approaches literacy from an equity lens, applying a framework she calls Historically Responsive Literacy. She writes about the ways in which an equitable education benefits all students, not just those who are marginalized. It spans grade levels and is ideal for any teacher interested in equity.

16. Fostering Resilient Learners: A Trauma-Sensitive Classroom

by Kristin Souers and Pete Hall

New research has emerged this decade showing the profound impact trauma has on both social-emotional well-being and learning. The authors of this book show teachers – across grade levels and content areas – how to foster a trauma-sensitive learning environment.

17. If You Don’t Feed the Teachers They Eat the Students

by Neila A. Connors

If you’re an administrator or school leader, this is the book for you. It’s certainly on the lighter side of professional development, but it offers school principals suggestions for making sure their teachers feel appreciated.

18. Not Light But Fire: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom

by Mathew R. Kay

After this summer’s sweeping cultural change brought about by Black Lives Matter activists, conversations about race will (and should) come up in classrooms of all levels. Mathew R. Kay guides educators through these sometimes-tough conversations.

19. Make or Break Year: Solving the Dropout Crisis One Ninth Grader at a Time

by Emily Krone Phillips

Phillips writes that more than one F during freshmen year dramatically increases a student’s chances of dropping out. In this book, the author looks at how one school in Chicago – Hancock High School – restructured itself to help freshmen navigate the oft-tumultuous first year of high school. The school saw major decreases in dropouts and influenced school structure around the country.

20. Better Than Carrots or Sticks: Restorative Practices for Positive Classroom Management

by Dominique Smith, Douglas Fisher, and Nancy Frey

Research supports the effectiveness of classroom management that teaches students to recognize and correct their behavior, a practice known as restorative classroom management. In this book, the authors examine the research and demonstrate how it is more effective over time than the usual positive/negative reinforcement model most teachers learned to employ.

21. The First Days of School

by Harry Wong and Rosemary T. Wong

Teacher professional development books: The First Days of School

Get it HERE

The First Days of School is a classic that could be worth revisiting this summer in preparation for the fall. In this book, the authors make an argument that good classroom management depends not on discipline but on teaching structure and routine at the beginning of the year. Due to COVID-19, many of our routines will change and students will need to be taught new expectations. The First Days of School can help.

22. I Wish My Teacher Knew: How One Question Can Change Everything for Our Kids

by Kyle Schwartz

Third-grade teacher Kyle Schwartz stumbled across one question that changed the way she teaches – she asked her students to fill in the blank: “I wish my teacher knew __________.” She was shocked at the insight she gained, and immediately the hashtag #IWishMyTeacherKnew was born.

23. Happy Teachers Change the World: A Guide for Cultivating Mindfulness in Education

by Thich Nhat Hanh and Katherine Weare

Basic practices taught by Thich Nhat Hanh are enumerated here and applied to classrooms. This book spans the gamut from preschool to higher education. It starts with the idea that teachers must first establish their own mindfulness practice to then cultivate mindfulness in their students.

24. The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child

by Donalyn Miller

Get it HERE.

Donalyn Miller writes a handbook to help middle school teachers turn their students into voracious readers. She offers practical tips and many examples from her own experience. Her follow-up book Reading in the Wild is equally worth picking up.

25. Write Beside Them: Risk, Voice, and Clarity in High School Writing

by Penny Kittle

Penny Kittle breaks down how she teaches, assigns, and grades writing using a portfolio model. The backbone of her teaching practice is the fact that she writes with her students, using her own writing to model the revision process.

26. Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters

by Kylene Beers and Bob Probst

In Disrupting Thinking , the authors examine why students often check out of reading assignments. They suggest this has to do with the fact that educators have misrepresented the way we use reading in our own lives. They present hands-on ideas that can be used to increase student engagement in literacy across grade levels and subject areas.

27. The New Art and Science of Teaching

by Robert Marzano

Teachers may be familiar with Marzano’s The Art and Science of Teaching , which focuses on teacher outcomes. This new version contains 50 “new strategies for instructional success” designed to improve student outcomes in the classroom. He defines three instructional principles to optimize student learning: first, students must have their basic needs met. Then, students must receive meaningful feedback that follows masterful content instruction.

28. Raising the Rigor

by Eileen Depka

Professional development books for teahers: Raising the Rigor

This is a book about questioning techniques. The author shows teachers how to use questioning to differentiate instruction in order to respond to the diverse needs of our students. She uses many examples to illustrate her main ideas and includes checklists, surveys, and templates for immediate classroom use.

29. How to Differentiate Instruction in Academically Diverse Classrooms

by Carol Ann Tomlinson

Differentiated instruction recognizes that students learn in different ways at different rates. As today’s classrooms become more diverse, differentiated instruction is more important than ever. This book is a practical guide to how to implement this philosophy in the classroom.

29 Must-Have Professional Development Books for Teachers

31 Best Beach Reads for Teachers This Summer

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10 Best Creative Writing Books to Read in 2023

Introduction:.

The world of creative writing possesses an extraordinary ability to unleash imagination, craft narratives, and evoke emotions that resonate with readers. Whether you're an aspiring writer or simply someone who appreciates the art of storytelling, consider Oxford Summer Courses. Embark on a transformative journey through our Creative Writing summer school, where you will have the opportunity to explore the art of crafting compelling narratives, experimenting with various writing styles, and honing your literary skills.

Disclaimer:

Please note that the following list of books is recommended reading to broaden your knowledge and deepen your appreciation of creative writing and literature. While some of these books may be included in the Oxford Summer Courses curriculum, the specific content of the summer school can vary. If you wish to study these subjects with us, you can apply to our Creative Writing summer school.

Subscribe to our newsletter to receive helpful tips, tutorials, and thought-provoking articles that can inform and inspire your creative writing journey at Oxford Summer Courses. Sign up here.

1. On Writing, by Stephen King

"Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration; the rest of us just get up and go to work."
Published in 2000, "On Writing" by Stephen King is a masterclass in the craft of storytelling. It combines King's personal journey as a writer with practical advice on honing your writing skills during your time at Oxford Summer Courses.
Discussion: How can Stephen King's advice on discipline and the writing process benefit aspiring writers at Oxford Summer Courses today?

2. Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott

"Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere."
Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird" is an encouraging guide for writers facing the daunting task of putting words on the page. Through humor and personal anecdotes, she offers valuable insights into the writing process during your Creative Writing summer school at Oxford Summer Courses.
Discussion: How does Lamott's emphasis on "shitty first drafts" resonate with your own experiences as a writer at Oxford Summer Courses?

3. The Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White

"Omit needless words."
A timeless classic, "The Elements of Style" is a concise guide to writing well. It provides essential rules of grammar and composition that every writer should know, especially during their time at Oxford Summer Courses.
Discussion: How do the principles outlined in "The Elements of Style" apply to various forms of creative writing, from fiction to poetry, at Oxford Summer Courses?

4. The story, by Robert McKee

"Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact."
Robert McKee's "Story" is a comprehensive exploration of the principles behind effective storytelling. It's a must-read for anyone looking to understand the structure and elements of compelling narratives during their time at Oxford Summer Courses.
Discussion: How can the insights from "Story" enhance your ability to construct engaging and impactful stories during your Creative Writing summer school at Oxford Summer Courses?

5. Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert

"Do whatever brings you to life, then. Follow your own fascinations, obsessions, and compulsions. Trust them. Create whatever causes a revolution in your heart."
In "Big Magic," Elizabeth Gilbert delves into the creative process and encourages writers to embrace their creativity with courage and curiosity, a valuable lesson during your time at Oxford Summer Courses.
Discussion: How can Gilbert's philosophy on creativity inspire you to approach your writing with a sense of wonder and daring at Oxford Summer Courses?

6. The Art of Fiction, by John Gardner

"Fiction seeks out truth. The writer has to go into the dark, quiet spaces of himself and feel around for the truth."
John Gardner's "The Art of Fiction" offers profound insights into the art and craft of writing fiction. It explores the intricacies of character development, plot, and the writer's role in conveying truth through storytelling during your Creative Writing summer school at Oxford Summer Courses.
Discussion: How can Gardner's exploration of truth in fiction inform your own creative writing endeavors at Oxford Summer Courses?

7. Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg

"Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open."
Natalie Goldberg's "Writing Down the Bones" is a meditative guide to writing practice. It encourages writers to tap into their innermost thoughts and emotions during their Creative Writing summer school at Oxford Summer Courses.
Discussion: How can Goldberg's approach to writing as a form of meditation help you access deeper layers of creativity in your work at Oxford Summer Courses?

8. The Elements of Eloquence, by Mark Forsyth

"Rhetoric is the art of dressing up some unimportant matter to fool the audience for the moment."
"The Elements of Eloquence" explores the art of rhetoric and language play. Mark Forsyth's witty and informative book will inspire you to experiment with language in your writing during your time at Oxford Summer Courses.
Discussion: How can a deeper understanding of rhetorical devices enhance your ability to craft persuasive and evocative prose at Oxford Summer Courses?

9. Zen in the Art of Writing, by Ray Bradbury

"Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spent the rest of the day putting the pieces together."
Ray Bradbury's "Zen in the Art of Writing" is a collection of essays that celebrate the joy and passion of writing. Bradbury shares his insights on creativity and the writing life during your Creative Writing summer school at Oxford Summer Courses.
Discussion: How can Bradbury's enthusiasm for writing infuse your own creative process with energy and purpose at Oxford Summer Courses?

10. The Nighttime Novelist, by Joseph Bates

"Writing is an exploration of the heart."
"The Nighttime Novelist" by Joseph Bates is a practical guide for writers who balance their craft with busy lives. It offers strategies for maximizing your writing time and making progress on your projects during your time at Oxford Summer Courses.
Discussion: How can the techniques outlined in "The Nighttime Novelist" help you maintain a consistent and productive writing practice at Oxford Summer Courses?

Oxford Summer Courses invites you to immerse yourself in the enchanting world of creative writing during your time at our summer school. In this blog post, we present a meticulously curated list of 10 classic books that will ignite your imagination and deepen your understanding of the art of storytelling. From Stephen King's practical wisdom in "On Writing" to Ray Bradbury's celebration of the writing life in "Zen in the Art of Writing," these books will serve as your companions on your creative writing journey at Oxford Summer Courses. Through our Creative Writing program, you will have the opportunity to explore these influential texts, share your insights with fellow writers, and refine your craft. Join us on this literary adventure and embark on a transformative experience that will shape your writing skills and inspire your creative spirit during your time at Oxford Summer Courses. Who knows, you might just discover a newfound passion for the art of storytelling and create narratives that resonate with readers for generations to come.

Apply now to join the Oxford Summer Courses Creative Writing summer school and embark on a journey of self-expression and creativity during your time at Oxford Summer Courses. Join a community of passionate writers from around the world and unlock your potential as a storyteller. Apply here.

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Ignite your passion for creative writing at Oxford Summer Courses. Immerse yourself in a carefully curated list of books that will spark your creativity, refine your storytelling abilities, and help you embark on a transformative journey as a writer.

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The Top 50 Best Books for Teachers – Professional Development Education Books You’ll Love

1. the innovator’s mindset: empower learning, unleash talent, and learn a culture of creativity – george couros.

2. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way To Build Good Habits And Break Bad Ones – James Clear

3. So Much Reform, So Little Change: The Persistence Of Failure In Urban Schools – Charles M Payne

4. vintage innovation: leveraging retro tools and classic ideas to design deeper learning experiences – john spencer.

5. An Educator’s Guide To STEAM: Engaging Students Using Real-World Problems – Cassie F Quigley, Danielle Herro, Deborah Hanuscin
6. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead – Brene Brown
7. The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything – Ken Robinson, Lou Aronica
8. The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change – Adam Braun
9. Epiphany: True Stories of Sudden Insight to Inspire, Encourage and Transform, – Elise Ballard

10. the coddling of the amerian mind: how good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation for failure – greg lukianoff, jonathan haidt, 11. the whole-brain child: 12 revolutionary strategies to nurture your child’s developing mind – daniel j. siegel, tina payne bryson, 12. the power of place: authentic learning through place-based education – tom vander ark, emily leibtag, nate mcclennen.

13. The Happiness of Pursuit: Finding the Quest That Will Bring Purpose to Your Life – Chris Guillebeau
14. Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative – Ken Robinson
15. The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are – Brene Brown
16. Walking on Water: Reading, Writing and Revolution – Derrick Jensen
17. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us – Daniel H. Pink
18. The Principal: Three Keys to Maximizing Impact – Michael Fullan

19. Flipping Leadership Doesn’t Mean Reinventing the Wheel – Peter M DeWitt

20. Teach Like a Pirate: Increase Student Engagement, Boost Your Creativity, and Transform Your Life as an Educator – Dave Burgess
21. Leverage Leadership: A Practical Guide to Building Exceptional Schools – Paul Bambrick-Santoyo
22. Shifting the Monkey: The Art of Protecting Good People From Liars, Criers, and Other Slackers – Todd Whitaker
23. The Multiplier Effect: Tapping the Genius Inside Our Schools – Multiple Authors
24. What Great Teachers Do Differently: 17 Things That Matter Most – Todd Whitaker
25. The Tech-Savvy Administrator: How do I use technology to be a better school leader? – Steven W. Anderson
26. How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character – Paul Tough
27. Mindsets in the Classroom: Building a Culture of Success and Student Achievement in Schools – Mary Cay Ricci
28. The Way of Mindful Education: Cultivating Well-Being in Teachers and Students – Daniel Rechtschaffen
29. The Way They Learn – Cynthia Ulrich Tobias
30. Why Don’t Students Like School: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom – Daniel T Willingham
31. The Motivation Breakthrough: 6 Secrets to Turning On the Tuned-Out Child – Richard Lavoie
32. Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning – Peter C Brown
33. How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching – Multiple Authors
34. Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning – John Hattie
35. Design For How People Learn (Voices That Matter) – Julie Dirksen
36. Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools – Michael B Horn, Heather Staker
37. The Relevant Educator: How Connectedness Empowers Learning – Tom D Whitby, Steven W. Anderson
38. Mindset: The New Psychology Of Success – Carol Dweck
39. School Culture Rewired: How to Define, Assess, and Transform It – Steve Gruenert, Todd Whitaker
40. Shaping School Culture: Pitfalls, Paradoxes, and Promises – Terrence E Deal, Kent D Peterson
41. Professional Capital: Transforming Teaching in Every School – Andy Hargreaves, Michael Fullan
42. Cultures Built to Last – DuFour Richard, Fullan Michael
43. The Six Secrets of Change: What the Best Leaders Do to Help Their Organizations Survive And Thrive – Michael Fullan
44. Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World – Tony Wagner
45. Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day – Jonathan Bergmann, Aaron Sams
46. Worlds of Making: Best Practices for Establishing a Makerspace for Your School – Laura Fleming
47. Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners – Multiple Authors
48. Total Participation Techniques: Making Every Student an Active Learner – Persida & William Himmele
49. Disrupting Class, Expanded Edition: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns – Multiple Authors
50. Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Understanding – Jay McTighe, Grant Wiggins
51. The Understanding by Design Guide Set (2 Books)– Grant Wiggins, Jay McTighe
52. Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty – Elizabeth F Barkley
53. Reinventing Writing: The 9 Tools That Are Changing Writing, Teaching, and Learning Forever – Vicki Davis
54. Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom – Sylvia Libow Martinez, Gary S Stager

More Professional Development Books and Educator Books For Teachers Reading List

There are a LOT of great books for teachers out there. Picking just fifty is no easy feat, but we’ve done our best to cover the best books for teachers from five different angles .

All of these are exceptional reads for teachers. They are in no particular order ; number one’s content is just as significant a teacher resource as number fifty. So, take a browse through the list or jump directly to your area of interest as a teacher, whether it’s inspiration, mindfulness, leadership ways, classroom management, improved student outcomes, teaching, learning culture, or educational psychology.

Top Professional Development Books For Teachers Compared

One of our favorite professional development books for teachers, The Innovator’s Mindset, contains numerous practical examples of innovative leadership. George Couros encourages any school teacher and administrator to shape students’ natural curiosity by empowering them to question and explore. Innovation starts at the top; this book shows educators how to become innovative thinkers.

2. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way To Build Good Habits And Break Bad Ones – James Clear

While not strictly a professional development book, it is one of my favorite books for teachers. In Atomic Habits, world-renowned habits expert James Clear explains how small changes can transform a teacher’s life and impact student learning and student behavior. This practical book reveals simple life hacks and explains why they form good habits and break bad ones.

In this book, Charles M Payne vividly portrays the weakness of the social infrastructure and daily realities in today’s urban schools. However, the last decade has brought hope with insights into the causes of school failure and how some schools succeeded in improving.

John Spencer’s professional development books answer questions real teachers have about being innovative in the classroom without the best technology, spark creativity within constraints, and how to use vintage tools and approaches in new ways. Vintage Innovation shows the relevance for teachers to look back and forward, using timeless skills and strategies in new ways.

5. An Educator’s Guide To STEAM: Engaging Students Using Real-World Problems – Cassie F Quigley, Danielle Herro, Deborah Hanuscin

An Educator’s Guide to STEAM is a practical book to help K-8 grade teachers understand STEAM. The conceptual model illustrates key STEAM teaching aspects like integrating STEAM content and the correct teaching environment. One of the best STEAM-related professional development books for teachers, this book also offers strategies and elements of connected learning to help learners connect STEAM to real-world issues.

6. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead – Brene Brown

In Daring Greatly, Dr. Brown challenges everything we think we know about vulnerability. Based on twelve years of research, she argues that vulnerability is not weakness but rather our clearest path to courage, engagement, and meaningful connection. Understanding these concepts can help a teacher in teaching learners and classroom management.

7. The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything – Ken Robinson, Lou Aronica

The Element is the point at which natural talent meets personal passion. When people arrive at the Element, they feel most themselves and most inspired and achieve their highest levels. With a wry sense of humor, Ken Robinson looks at the conditions that enable us to find ourselves in the Element and those that stifle that possibility.

8. The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change – Adam Braun

The riveting New York Times bestseller is about a young man who built more than 250 schools worldwide—and the steps anyone can take to lead a successful and significant life. The Promise of a Pencil chronicles Braun’s journey to find his calling, as each chapter explains one clear step that every person can take to turn their most significant ambitions into reality. An inspiring book to add to the reading list of professional development books for teachers.

9. Epiphany: True Stories of Sudden Insight to Inspire, Encourage and Transform, – Elise Ballard

Have you ever experienced an epiphany, a life-changing moment, or a realization? Elise Ballard has, and she was so stunned by its effect on her life that she started asking others if they had ever experienced these kinds of breakthroughs.

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First Amendment expert Greg Lukianhoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt make a case for how three terrible ideas in childhood education are the origins of new problem trends on college campuses. The three untruths are: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker, Always trust your feelings, and Life is a battle between good people and evil people. Embracing these untruths has a negative influence on the social, emotional, and intellectual development of children, hence poor school discipline and relationships. According to them, cognitive behavioral psychology (CBT) has tools to evaluate and rectify these situations. Excellent reading material for teachers, parents, and mainstream society concerned about a generation setup for trauma and failure.

Teachers are lifelong learners, and this book is a great practical book on how to develop healthy brain development in children. New York Times bestsellers, the authors, offer a revolutionary approach to rearing children. Based on the latest neuroscience research on how young children’s right brain emotions rule over their logical left brain, they offer 12 key age-appropriate strategies to cultivate healthy emotional and intellectual development. According to the authors, the brain is “under construction” until a child is in their mid-twenties. This is a recommended reading not just for parents and new teachers in elementary education but for all teachers with a passion for teaching; an excellent.

Placed-based education (PBE) is adaptable learning anytime and anywhere where learning leverages the power of place for personalized learning. Since birth, children learn from their surroundings, and history shows that before industrialized education, the community was the classroom. Instead of the American classroom becoming an aspect of learning, it became the place where parents send their children to learn. This book provides teacher educators with ideas on how to enhance the benefits of place-based learning in the teaching profession. Another good read to add to parents’ and teachers’ bookshelves.

13. The Happiness of Pursuit: Finding the Quest That Will Bring Purpose to Your Life – Chris Guillebeau

A remarkable book, the content, like his other books, will guide and inspire the teacher and students in the classroom. The Happiness of Pursuit reveals how anyone can bring meaning into their life by undertaking a quest. When he set out to visit all of the planet’s countries by age thirty-five, compulsive goal seeker, Chris Guillebeau never imagined that his journey’s biggest revelation would be how many people like himself exist – each pursuing a challenging quest.

14. Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative – Ken Robinson

“It is often said that education and training are the keys to the future. They are, but a key can turn in two directions. Turn it one way, and you lock resources away, even from those they belong to. Turn it the other way, and you release resources and give people back to themselves.” Learning to be Creative is one of the best books for teachers to inspire learners and educators to think and act differently toward each other.

15. The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are – Brene Brown

In The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown, a leading expert on shame, authenticity, and belonging, shares ten guideposts on the power of Wholehearted living—a way of engaging with the world from a place of worthiness.

16. Walking on Water: Reading, Writing and Revolution – Derrick Jensen

Remember the days of longing for the hands-on classroom clock to move faster? Most of us would say we love to learn, but we hate school. Why is that? This book addresses what happens to creativity and individuality as we pass through the educational system. How can we change our lesson planning to help students retain their love for learning?

17. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us – Daniel H. Pink

Most people believe that the best way to motivate is with rewards like money—the carrot-and-stick approach. That’s a mistake, says Daniel H. Pink. In this provocative and persuasive new book, he asserts that the secret to high performance and satisfaction at work, at school, and home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.

18. The Principal: Three Keys to Maximizing Impact – Michael Fullan

One of the best-known leadership authors in education, Fullan, explains why the answer isn’t in micro-managing instruction nor autonomous entrepreneurialism. He systematically shows how the principal’s role should change, demonstrating how it can be done in short order, at scale.

Part of The Corwin Connected Educator series, in this volume, you’ll use the principles of connectedness and flipped learning to engage stakeholders—teachers, administrators, and parents—digitally, so they’re ready for productive discussion when you meet in person.

20. Teach Like a Pirate: Increase Student Engagement, Boost Your Creativity, and Transform Your Life as an Educator – Dave Burgess

Based on Dave Burgess’s popular “Outrageous Teaching” and “Teach Like a PIRATE” seminars, this development book offers inspiration, practical techniques, and innovative ideas that will help the teacher increase student engagement, boost your creativity and transform your life as an educator.

Also, see Fractus reviews of Play Like a Pirate and Explore Like a Pirate .

21. Leverage Leadership: A Practical Guide to Building Exceptional Schools – Paul Bambrick-Santoyo

One of the best professional development books for teachers on leadership, Paul Bambrick-Santoyo (Managing Director of Uncommon Schools), shows leaders how to raise their schools to greatness by following a core set of principles. These seven principles, or “levers,” allow for consistent, transformational, and replicable growth. With an intentional focus on these areas, leaders will leverage much more learning from the same amount of time investment.

22. Shifting the Monkey: The Art of Protecting Good People From Liars, Criers, and Other Slackers – Todd Whitaker

Poor employees get a disproportionate amount of attention. Why? Because they complain the loudest, create the greatest disruptions, and rely on others to assume the responsibilities they shirk. Learn how to focus on your good employees first and help them shift these monkeys back to the under-performers.

23. The Multiplier Effect: Tapping the Genius Inside Our Schools – Multiple Authors

Why do some leaders double their team’s effectiveness while others seem to drain the energy right out of the room? Using insights from more than 100 interviews with school leaders, this development book pinpoints the five disciplines that define how Multipliers bring out the best across their schools and classroom.

24. What Great Teachers Do Differently: 17 Things That Matter Most – Todd Whitaker

In the third edition of this renowned book, you will find pearls of wisdom, heartfelt advice, and inspiration from one of the nation’s leading authorities on staff motivation, teacher leadership, and principal effectiveness. With wit and understanding, Todd Whitaker describes the beliefs, behaviors, attitudes, and interactions of great teachers and explains what they do differently.

25. The Tech-Savvy Administrator: How do I use technology to be a better school leader? – Steven W. Anderson

How can school leaders use technology to be more effective? In this professional development book, award-winning blogger and educational technology expert Steven W. Anderson explain how and why leaders should use technology and outlines what should be in every leader’s digital toolkit.

26. How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character – Paul Tough

How Children Succeed introduces us to a new generation of researchers and educators who, for the first time, are using the tools of science to peel back the mysteries of character. Through their stories—and the stories of the children they are trying to help—Tough reveals how this new knowledge can transform young people’s lives inside and outside the classroom.

27. Mindsets in the Classroom: Building a Culture of Success and Student Achievement in Schools – Mary Cay Ricci

When students believe that dedication and hard work can change their performance in school, they grow to become resilient, successful students. Inspired by the popular mindset idea that hard work and effort can lead to student success, Mindsets in the Classroom provides educators with ideas for building a growth mindset school culture. Learners are challenged to change their thinking about their abilities and potential.

28. The Way of Mindful Education: Cultivating Well-Being in Teachers and Students – Daniel Rechtschaffen

With attention spans waning and stress on the rise, many teachers are looking for new ways to help students concentrate, learn, and thrive. The Way of Mindful Education is a practical guide for cultivating attention, compassion, and well-being in these students and mindfulness in teachers themselves.

29. The Way They Learn – Cynthia Ulrich Tobias

Draw out the best in your children—by understanding the way they learn. If you’re frustrated that your child isn’t learning the way you did, chances are they are too! In this practical resource, Cynthia Ulrich Tobias explains that understanding how you learn can make all the difference.

30. Why Don’t Students Like School: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom – Daniel T Willingham

Easy-to-apply, scientifically-based approaches for engaging students in the classroom. Cognitive scientist Dan Willingham focuses his acclaimed research on the biological and cognitive basis of learning. His professional development books will help teachers improve their practice by explaining how they and their students think and learn.

31. The Motivation Breakthrough: 6 Secrets to Turning On the Tuned-Out Child – Richard Lavoie

The Motivation Breakthrough explores proven techniques and strategies—based on six possible motivational styles—that will revolutionize the way teachers and parents inspire kids with learning disabilities to succeed and achieve. Backed by decades of experience in the classroom, educator and acclaimed author Rick Lavoie explodes common myths and gives specific advice for motivating children with learning disabilities.

32. Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning – Peter C Brown

Drawing on cognitive psychology and other fields, Make It Stick offers techniques for becoming more productive learners and cautions against study habits and practice routines that turn out to be counterproductive. It’s one of those professional development books that speak to students, teachers, trainers, athletes, and all those interested in lifelong learning and self-improvement.

33. How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching – Multiple Authors

Distilling the research literature and translating the scientific approach into language relevant to college or university, this book for teachers introduces seven general principles of how students learn. The authors have drawn on research from a breadth of perspectives to identify a set of fundamental principles underlying learning, from how effective organization enhances retrieval and use of information to what impacts motivation.

34. Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning – John Hattie

Visible Learning for Teachers brings the results of more than fifteen years of research to an entirely new audience. Written for students, pre-service, and in-service teachers, it explains how to apply the principles of Visible Learning to any classroom anywhere in the world.

35. Design For How People Learn (Voices That Matter) – Julie Dirksen

Products, technologies, and workplaces change so quickly today that everyone is continually learning. Many of us are also teaching, even when it’s not in our job descriptions. Whether it’s giving a presentation, writing documentation, or creating a website or blog, we need and want to share our knowledge with other people.

36. Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools – Michael B Horn, Heather Staker

Blended is the practical field guide for implementing blended learning techniques in K-12 classrooms. Readers will find a step-by-step framework to build a more student-centered system, along with essential advice that provides the expertise necessary to make the next generation of K-12 learning environments.

37. The Relevant Educator: How Connectedness Empowers Learning – Tom D Whitby, Steven W. Anderson

This information-packed resource from digital experts Anderson and Whitby makes it easy to build a thriving professional network using social media. Easy-to-implement ideas, essential tools, and real-life vignettes help a teacher learn to: Find and choose the best social media tools, products, and communities. Start and grow a collaborative, high-quality PLN using Twitter, blogging, LinkedIn, and more.

38. Mindset: The New Psychology Of Success – Carol Dweck

In decades of research on achievement and success, world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck has discovered a truly groundbreaking idea of the power of our mindset. Dweck explains why it’s not just our abilities and talent that bring us success – but whether we approach them with a fixed or growth mindset.

39. School Culture Rewired: How to Define, Assess, and Transform It – Steve Gruenert, Todd Whitaker

Your school is a lot more than a center of student learning–it also represents a self-contained culture with traditions and expectations that reflect its unique mission and demographics. In this groundbreaking book for teachers, education experts Steve Gruenert and Todd Whitaker offer tools, strategies, and advice for defining, assessing, and ultimately transforming your school’s culture into one that is positive, forward-looking, and actively working to enrich students’ lives.

40. Shaping School Culture: Pitfalls, Paradoxes, and Promises – Terrence E Deal, Kent D Peterson

In this thoroughly revised and updated edition of their classic book, Shaping School Culture, Terrence Deal and Kent Peterson address the latest thinking on organizational culture and change. They offer new ideas and strategies on how stories, rituals, traditions, and cultural practices create positive, caring, and purposeful schools.

41. Professional Capital: Transforming Teaching in Every School – Andy Hargreaves, Michael Fullan

Winner of the 2015 Grawemeyer Award in Education! In this latest and most important collaboration, renowned educators Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullan set out a groundbreaking new agenda to transform the future of teaching and public education.

42. Cultures Built to Last – DuFour Richard, Fullan Michael

Take your professional learning community to the next level! Discover a systemwide approach for re-envisioning your PLC while sustaining growth and continuing momentum on your journey. You’ll move beyond isolated pockets of excellence while allowing every person in your school system—from teachers and administrators to students—the opportunity to be an instrument of lasting cultural change.

43. The Six Secrets of Change: What the Best Leaders Do to Help Their Organizations Survive And Thrive – Michael Fullan

Successful organizations adjust quickly and intelligently to shifts in consumer tastes, political climate, and economic opportunity. How do they do it? The Six Secrets of Change explores essential lessons for business and public sector leaders to thrive in today’s complex environment.

44. Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World – Tony Wagner

In this groundbreaking book, education expert Tony Wagner provides a powerful rationale for developing an innovation-driven economy. He explores what parents, teachers, and employers must do to develop the capacities of young people to become innovators.

45. Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day – Jonathan Bergmann, Aaron Sams

It started with a simple observation: students need their teachers present to answer questions or provide help if they get stuck on an assignment; they don’t need their teachers to listen to a lecture or review content. From there, authors Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams began the flipped classroom – one of the best professional development books for a modern classroom.

46. Worlds of Making: Best Practices for Establishing a Makerspace for Your School – Laura Fleming

Get the nuts and bolts on imagining, planning, creating, and managing a cutting-edge Makerspace for your school community. Nationally recognized expert Laura Fleming provides all the answers. From inception through implementation, you’ll find invaluable guidance for creating a vibrant Makerspace on any budget.

47. Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners – Multiple Authors

Visible Thinking is a research-based approach to teaching thinking, a proven program for enhancing students’ thinking and comprehension abilities. Begun at Harvard’s Project Zero, the teaching way develops students’ thinking dispositions while at the same time deepening their understanding of the topics they study.

48. Total Participation Techniques: Making Every Student an Active Learner – Persida & William Himmele

Total Participation Techniques presents dozens of ways to engage K 12 students in active learning and allow them to demonstrate the depth of their knowledge and understanding. The book provides easy-to-use alternatives to the stand-and-deliver approach to teaching that causes many students to tune out–or even drop out.

49. Disrupting Class, Expanded Edition: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns – Multiple Authors

Filled with fascinating case studies, scientific findings, and unprecedented insights on how innovation must be managed, Disrupting Class will open your eyes to new possibilities, unlock hidden potential, and get you to think differently. Professor Christensen and his coauthors provide a bold new lesson in innovation that will help you make the grade for years to come.

50. Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Understanding – Jay McTighe, Grant Wiggins

What are essential questions, and how do they differ from other kinds of questions? What’s so great about them? Why should a teacher design and use essential questions in your classroom? Essential questions help target standards as you organize curriculum content into coherent units that yield focused and thoughtful learning.

51. The Understanding by Design Guide Set (2 Books) – Grant Wiggins, Jay McTighe

Unit creation and planning made easy for Understanding by Design novices and veterans alike! Introduction to version 2.0 of the UbD Template is one of the most practical professional development books for teachers. It allows you to download fillable electronic forms to help you more easily incorporate standards, advance your understanding of backward design, and improve student learning.

52. Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty – Elizabeth F Barkley

Student Engagement Techniques is a comprehensive resource that offers college teachers a dynamic model for engaging students. It includes over one hundred tips, strategies, and techniques proven to help teachers from various disciplines and institutions motivate and connects with their students.

53. Reinventing Writing: The 9 Tools That Are Changing Writing, Teaching, and Learning Forever – Vicki Davis

In this much-anticipated book from acclaimed blogger Vicki Davis (Cool Cat Teacher), you’ll learn the key shifts in writing instruction necessary to move students forward in today’s world. Vicki’s book describes how the elements of traditional writing are being reinvented with cloud-based tools.

54. Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom – Sylvia Libow Martinez, Gary S Stager

There’s a technological and creative revolution underway. Excellent new tools, materials, and skills turn us all into makers. Using technology to make, repair or customize the things we need brings engineering, design, and computer science to the masses. Fortunately for educators, this maker movement overlaps with the natural inclinations of children and the power of learning by doing.

The Teacher’s Guide To Self-Care: Build Resilience, Avoid Burnout, And Being A Happier And Healthier You To The Classroom – Sarah Frost
I Wish My Teacher Knew: How One Question Can Change Everything For Our Kids – Kyle Schwartz
Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes Into Stepping Stones for Succes – John C Maxwell and other Professional Development and Leadership Books by John C Maxwell
Teach Like A Champion 3.0: Techniques That Put Students On The Path To College – Doug Lemov
Educated: A Memoir – Tara Westover
Whole Brain Teaching: 122 Amazing Games!: Challenging Kids, Classroom Management, Writing, Reading, Math, Common Core/State Test s – Chris Biffle
What School Could Be: Insights And Inspiration From Teachers Across America – Ted Dintersmith
The First Days Of School: How To Be An Effective Teacher – Harry Wong
Disruptive Thinking: Why How We Read Matters – Kylene Beers, Robert E. Probst

What are your best books for teachers? Leave your favorites in the comments below.

The founder of Fractus Learning, Nick is a pizza-loving Aussie living and working in Dublin, Ireland. With a background in education, engineering and digital product development, Nick launched Fractus to connect people with a shared passion for technology and how it can bring education to life.

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This is a great list, and very current. I would add Debbie Silver’s Fall Down 7 Times, Get up 8: Teaching Kids to Succeed. It’s a wonderful blend of theory, practice and narrative.

Thanks Susie! Appreciate the recommendation and it’s now on the Amazon Wish List ;)

Excellent List! Thanks very much for creating and sharing it!

Another great book that was recently published and is a real self-training manual for language teachers is the book ‘Optimise your Teaching Competences: New Teaching Methodologies and CLIL Applications in Foreign Languages’. It contains innovative teaching methodologies and approaches as well as a wealth of teaching ideas for pair-work and group-work activities.

Thanks Eugenia, sounds great! Who is the author?

Great list, but I would have liked to see some more critical works that can incite discussion about the systems and conditions of learning. For example, Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Pedagogy of Freedom, McLaren’s Life in Schools, hooks Teaching to Transgress, Kumashiro’s Bad Teacher and Against Common Sense. As teachers we need to engage in theory and practice to make our reflections more than just a practitioner’s work.

Thanks for the comment and recommendations Chris!

Now many self help books are in the markets. But I couldnot understand why the readers are decrasing . I can’t say why the majority peoples hate books.

Great list. Some of your books are now on my order list. Thank you.

I suggest to add “Clean Language in the Classroom” by Julie McCracken. It has been published a few days ago. I do like it very much and I think it has the power to change the methods of teaching in grammar schools. It is a book not only for teachers, but also a great source for inspiration to all kind of educators and to parents. I got a lot of ideas from it as a coach and trainer.

Creative Writing Books: A Curated 2024 Updated List

If you’re a writer looking to sharpen your skills, you’ll want to check out these 20 best books about creative writing. Whether you’re a seasoned novelist or just starting out, these books on creative writing offer valuable insights, exercises, and inspiration to help you unleash your creativity and improve your writing craft. From classic guides to contemporary must-reads, this list has something for every aspiring writer. Let’s dive into the world of creative writing books and discover the essential tools for honing your literary talent.

1 20 Best Books About Creative Writing
2 On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
3 Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
4 The Elements of Style
5 Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
6 The Writing Life
7 Zen in the Art of Writing
8 The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
9 Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within
10 The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
11 The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life
12 The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life
13 The Writing Book: A Workbook for Fiction Writers
14 The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers
15 The Writing Life: Writers on How They Think and Work
16 The Creative Writer’s Survival Guide: Advice from an Unrepentant Novelist
17 The Making of a Story: A Norton Guide to Creative Writing
18 The Art of X-Ray Reading: How the Secrets of 25 Great Works of Literature Will Improve Your Writing
19 Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story
20 Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting
21 The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles
22 Conclusion

20 Best Books About Creative Writing

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On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

By stephen king.

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft is a captivating book about the art of storytelling and the life of a prolific writer, Stephen King . In this compelling memoir, King shares his personal journey as a writer, from his early struggles to his eventual success. The book provides invaluable insights into the creative process, offering practical advice on honing one’s craft and developing a unique voice. King’s honest and straightforward narrative style makes this book about creative writing both informative and entertaining. Whether you’re an aspiring writer or a fan of King’s work, this creative writing book is a must-read for anyone interested in the art and craft of storytelling.

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

By anne lamott.

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott is a beloved book on creative writing that offers practical advice and humorous insights for aspiring writers. Lamott shares her personal experiences and wisdom on the creative process, tackling self-doubt, and finding inspiration. The book about creative writing encourages writers to embrace their imperfections and to approach their work with patience and perseverance. With its warm and candid tone, this creative writing book is an invaluable resource for anyone looking to navigate the challenges of the writing life while honing their craft. Whether you’re a seasoned writer or just starting out, Bird by Bird provides a wealth of encouragement and guidance for the creative journey.

The Elements of Style

By william strunk jr. and e.b. white.

The Elements of Style, written by William Strunk Jr. and later revised and expanded by E.B. White, is a classic book on creative writing. This timeless guidebook is essential for anyone looking to improve their writing skills. It covers everything from grammar and punctuation to style and composition, providing clear and practical advice for crafting clear and impactful prose. The book about creative writing is concise and easy to follow, making it a valuable resource for writers of all levels. Whether you’re a student, professional writer, or just someone who wants to communicate more effectively, The Elements of Style is an indispensable tool for honing your craft and mastering the art of storytelling.

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

By elizabeth gilbert.

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert is a captivating book about creative writing. Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love, explores the mysterious and inspiring world of creativity in this book. She shares her wisdom and insights on how to live a creative life without succumbing to fear. With a blend of personal anecdotes, practical advice, and profound observations, Gilbert encourages readers to embrace their curiosity, let go of perfectionism, and pursue their creative passions wholeheartedly. Whether you’re a writer, artist, or simply someone who craves a more fulfilling and imaginative life, this creative writing book offers a fresh perspective on the creative process and the courage required to bring your ideas to life. Big Magic is a must-read for anyone seeking inspiration and guidance on their creative journey.

The Writing Life

By annie dillard.

The Writing Life by Annie Dillard is a captivating book on creative writing that takes readers on a journey into the world of writing. Dillard offers a unique perspective on the challenges and rewards of the writing life, drawing from her own experiences as a renowned author. Through beautiful prose and insightful observations, she explores the craft of writing, the solitary nature of the creative process, and the relentless pursuit of perfection. This book about creative writing is filled with wisdom and inspiration, making it a must-read for aspiring writers and anyone interested in the art of storytelling. Dillard’s eloquent reflections will resonate with anyone who has ever grappled with the complexities of the writing life, making it an essential addition to any writer’s library.

Zen in the Art of Writing

By ray bradbury.

Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury is a timeless classic that delves into the essence of the creative process. This book about creative writing is a collection of essays that offer insights, encouragement, and practical advice for aspiring writers. Bradbury’s passion for storytelling and his unique approach to the craft of writing are evident in every page, making it a must-read for anyone interested in honing their craft. Through his vivid prose and heartfelt anecdotes, he inspires readers to embrace their creativity and pursue their writing dreams with zeal. Zen in the Art of Writing is a captivating and enlightening guide that celebrates the joy and magic of the written word, making it an essential addition to any writer’s bookshelf.

The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

By julia cameron.

The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron is a transformative book on creative writing that guides readers on a spiritual journey to unlock their creativity. Cameron presents a 12-week program designed to help individuals overcome creative blocks, self-doubt, and fear, and tap into their innate creativity. Through a series of exercises and reflections, readers learn to cultivate a sense of curiosity, playfulness, and self-expression to unleash their creative potential. With its practical techniques and insightful wisdom, this book about creative writing has been a go-to resource for artists, writers, and anyone seeking to live a more creative and fulfilling life. The Artist’s Way is a must-read for anyone looking to reignite their passion for creative expression and reconnect with their artistic side.

Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

By natalie goldberg.

Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg is a beloved book on creative writing that has inspired countless writers to tap into their creativity and find their authentic voice. In this classic book about creative writing, Goldberg shares her wisdom and experience as a writer and writing teacher, offering practical advice and insightful exercises to help writers overcome self-doubt and unleash their creativity. Through her candid and engaging writing style, she encourages readers to embrace the practice of writing as a way of life, emphasizing the importance of discipline, observation, and fearlessness. Whether you’re a seasoned writer or just starting out, this creative writing book is a valuable resource for anyone looking to deepen their connection to the written word and cultivate a more meaningful and fulfilling writing practice.

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles

By steven pressfield.

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield is a powerful and inspiring book about the challenges and obstacles that creative individuals face in their pursuit of artistic expression. Pressfield delves into the concept of ‘resistance’ – the internal force that prevents us from reaching our true creative potential. Through a series of insightful essays, he provides valuable advice on how to overcome this resistance and break through the barriers that hinder our creativity. This book is a must-read for anyone struggling with their creative endeavors, as it offers practical strategies and encouragement to help readers win their inner creative battles. Whether you’re a writer, artist, musician, or any other type of creative professional, The War of Art is an essential resource for understanding and conquering the obstacles that stand in the way of your artistic fulfillment.

The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life

By twyla tharp.

The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp is a must-read for anyone looking to enhance their artistic practice. This insightful book on creative writing delves into the habits and routines that can cultivate creativity for a lifetime. Twyla Tharp, a renowned choreographer, shares her personal experiences and provides practical advice on how to harness creativity through discipline and dedication. She emphasizes the importance of establishing a daily routine and developing rituals to spark inspiration. Tharp’s unique perspective and engaging writing style make this a valuable resource for both aspiring and experienced creators. Whether you’re a writer, artist, or musician, this book about creative writing will inspire you to tap into your creative potential and establish a sustainable creative practice.

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The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life

The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life by Julia Cameron is a compelling and inspiring book about creative writing. Cameron, known for her bestseller The Artist’s Way, encourages readers to embrace their natural creativity and overcome the fear of writing. She provides practical exercises and insights to help aspiring writers unlock their potential and find their unique voice. The book explores the joy of creative writing and the importance of self-expression, offering guidance on how to cultivate a regular writing practice and overcome common obstacles. With warmth and wisdom, Cameron invites readers to explore the power of writing and discover the transformative impact it can have on their lives. Whether you’re a seasoned writer or just starting out, The Right to Write is a valuable resource for anyone looking to unleash their creativity and embrace the writing life.

The Writing Book: A Workbook for Fiction Writers

By kate grenville.

The Writing Book: A Workbook for Fiction Writers by Kate Grenville is a comprehensive guide for aspiring writers looking to enhance their storytelling skills. This book on creative writing offers practical exercises and insightful advice to help writers develop their craft and create compelling works of fiction. Grenville’s approach is both informative and engaging, providing valuable techniques for character development, plot structure, and narrative voice. Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned writer, this book about creative writing is a valuable resource for honing your skills and unleashing your creativity. With its practical exercises and expert guidance, The Writing Book is a must-have for anyone looking to elevate their storytelling abilities and produce captivating fiction.

The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers

By john gardner.

The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers by John Gardner is a classic book on creative writing that provides insightful guidance for aspiring writers. Gardner, a renowned novelist and writing instructor, delves into the essential elements of storytelling, such as character development, plot structure, and narrative craft. Through clear and practical advice, he offers valuable tips for honing one’s writing skills and creating compelling fiction. This book about creative writing is a treasure trove of wisdom for writers of all levels, as Gardner’s engaging prose and thoughtful analysis illuminate the art of storytelling. Whether you’re a novice writer seeking guidance or a seasoned wordsmith looking to refine your craft, The Art of Fiction is an indispensable resource for anyone passionate about the creative writing process.

The Writing Life: Writers on How They Think and Work

By marie arana.

The Writing Life: Writers on How They Think and Work by Marie Arana is a captivating book about creative writing that offers a rare glimpse into the minds of some of the world’s most renowned authors. Through a series of intimate interviews, Arana explores the writing process and the various techniques and rituals that different writers employ to bring their stories to life. The book delves into the creative process and provides valuable insights and inspiration for aspiring writers. It’s a must-read for anyone interested in the writing craft and the inner workings of the literary mind. The Writing Life is a treasure trove of wisdom and advice from some of the literary world’s most esteemed figures, making it an essential addition to any creative writing book collection.

The Creative Writer’s Survival Guide: Advice from an Unrepentant Novelist

By john mcnally.

The Creative Writer’s Survival Guide: Advice from an Unrepentant Novelist by John McNally is a treasure trove for aspiring writers. This book on creative writing is filled with valuable tips and insights on the craft of storytelling, character development, and navigating the publishing industry. McNally, an accomplished novelist, shares his wisdom with wit and candor, making this a must-read for anyone serious about honing their writing skills. Whether you’re struggling with writer’s block or seeking guidance on the business side of publishing, this book about creative writing has got you covered. McNally’s unapologetic approach to the art of writing is both refreshing and inspiring, making this creative writing book a valuable resource for writers at any stage of their journey.

The Making of a Story: A Norton Guide to Creative Writing

By alice laplante.

The Making of a Story: A Norton Guide to Creative Writing by Alice LaPlante is a comprehensive and insightful book on the craft of storytelling. LaPlante offers practical advice and exercises for writers of all levels, covering the essential elements of fiction, such as character development, plot structure, and dialogue. What sets this book about creative writing apart is its emphasis on the psychology of storytelling, delving into the motivations and intentions behind a writer’s creative choices. LaPlante’s engaging and accessible style makes this creative writing book a valuable resource for aspiring writers looking to hone their skills and deepen their understanding of the storytelling process. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced writer, The Making of a Story provides the tools and inspiration needed to embark on a literary journey.

The Art of X-Ray Reading: How the Secrets of 25 Great Works of Literature Will Improve Your Writing

By roy peter clark.

The Art of X-Ray Reading by Roy Peter Clark is a captivating book on creative writing that offers a unique approach to dissecting and understanding literature. Through the analysis of 25 classic works of literature, Clark reveals the hidden techniques and secrets that great writers use to captivate their readers. By delving into the subtext, structure, and language of these works, he provides valuable insights and practical tips that can help writers improve their own craft. This creative writing book is not just about creative writing; it’s about learning to read like a writer, to see beyond the surface and uncover the deeper layers of meaning and technique. Whether you’re an aspiring writer looking to enhance your skills or a literature enthusiast eager to gain a deeper appreciation for the art of storytelling, The Art of X-Ray Reading is a must-read.

Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story

By ursula k. le guin.

Steering the Craft is a renowned book on creative writing written by the legendary Ursula K. Le Guin . This comprehensive and engaging book about creative writing provides valuable insights and techniques for navigating the complexities of storytelling. Le Guin’s expertise and passion for the craft shine through as she delves into the essential elements of writing, such as voice, style, and point of view. Through thought-provoking exercises and illuminating examples, she guides writers on a transformative journey through the sea of story, empowering them to hone their skills and craft compelling narratives. Whether you’re a novice writer or a seasoned wordsmith, this creative writing book is an indispensable resource that will inspire and elevate your storytelling prowess.

Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

By robert mckee.

Robert McKee’s “Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting” is a renowned book on creative writing that delves into the art of crafting compelling narratives. McKee provides a comprehensive overview of the principles of storytelling, exploring the essential elements of substance, structure, and style. With a focus on screenwriting, the book offers valuable insights into character development, plot construction, and dialogue, making it an indispensable resource for writers looking to enhance their storytelling skills. McKee’s engaging writing style and in-depth analysis of successful storytelling make this book about creative writing a must-read for aspiring writers and seasoned authors alike. Whether you’re a screenwriter, novelist, or simply passionate about the craft of storytelling, “Story” is a creative writing book that will inspire and inform your writing journey.

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield is a powerful and inspiring book on creative writing that delves into the internal battles faced by every artist. Pressfield identifies the enemy as Resistance, which manifests as self-doubt, procrastination, and fear of failure. He presents practical strategies to overcome Resistance and unleash one’s creative potential. The book offers a no-nonsense approach to tackling the obstacles that stand in the way of artistic expression, making it a must-read for anyone struggling with their creative endeavors. With its profound insights and motivational tone, this book about creative writing is a valuable resource for writers, artists, and anyone seeking to break through their inner creative battles and fulfill their creative potential.

In conclusion, the world of Creative Writing is vast and diverse, and there are countless books about creative writing that can inspire and guide both aspiring and seasoned writers. Whether you’re looking for practical advice, creative prompts, or insight into the writing process, the 20 books listed in this article are excellent resources to add to your reading list. From classic texts to contemporary guides, there’s something for every writer to explore and learn from. Happy reading and happy writing!

Which Creative Writing book is best?

The best book on Creative Writing can vary with personal preference, but three widely recommended titles are:

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King ,
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott ,
The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White .

Each offers valuable insights and could be a great starting point.

What are the best books to learn about Creative Writing?

For those looking to learn about Creative Writing, there is a wealth of literature that can provide a comprehensive understanding of the subject. Some of the most highly recommended books include:

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White ,
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert ,
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard ,
Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury ,
The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron ,
Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg ,
The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield ,
The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life by Twyla Tharp

These books offer a range of perspectives on Creative Writing, covering various aspects and approaches to the subject.

What are the best books on Creative Writing?

The best books on Creative Writing include:

The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life by Julia Cameron ,
The Writing Book: A Workbook for Fiction Writers by Kate Grenville ,
Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury .

Each offers unique insights into the subject. While these books on the topic of Creative Writing are highly regarded, it’s important to note that any list of ‘best’ books is subjective and reflects a range of opinions.

What are the best Creative Writing books of all time?

Choosing the best Creative Writing books of all time can vary depending on who you ask, but seven titles that are often celebrated include

The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life by Twyla Tharp ,
and The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life by Julia Cameron .

Each of these books has made a significant impact in the field of Creative Writing and continues to be influential today.

Grades 6-12
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15 Creative Writing Books for Tweens & Teens

Further ignite a passion for writing.

Helping kids build strong literacy skills can also ignite an interest in creative writing. Tweens and teens in particular may crave opportunities to express themselves via silly stories, dramatic narratives, or free-flowing verse. The following creative writing books for teens are excellent resources for middle school and high school students wanting to delve deeper into crafting poetry and prose.

Creative Writing Books for Tweens

Alphamaniacs: builders of 26 wonders of the word by paul fleischman.

This illustrated biographical anthology explains how famous writers throughout history having played with word structure and phonics.

Brave The Page by Rebecca Stern and Grant Faulkner

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)’s “how-to” guide for middle school students on crafting characters, plots, and settings.

Create Your Own Graphic Novel: A Guide for Kids by David Wayne Chiu

Young writers will get pro drawing tips along with step-by-step instructions on developing a visual storyboard.

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Find Your Voice: A Guided Journal for Writing Your Truth by Angie Thomas

Bestselling author Angie Thomas instructs tweens on how to tell stories that reflect their lives and communities.

Secrets of Storytelling: A Creative Writing Workbook for Kids by Natalie Rompella

A creative writing book that contains 100 short story prompts for kids aged 8-12.

Write Your Own Poems by Jerome Martin

A beginner’s handbook for budding poets that contains 90 pages of poetry-themed writing activities.

Journal Sparks: Fire Up Your Creativity with Spontaneous Art, Wild Writing, and Inventive Thinking by Emily K. Neuburger

Journaling is the first step in brainstorming a story in this interactive tool for jumpstarting one’s imagination.

Creative Writing Books for Teens

Burn after writing by sharon jones.

A confessional space for teens meant to redirect their attention from social media posts to handwritten musings.

Dear Ally, How Do You Write A Book? by Ally Carter

Over 25 published YA writers share expert insight on taking a book idea from conception to publication.

Big Life Journal – Teen Edition by Big Life Brand

Writing is used as a tool for goal setting and developing a growth mindset in this vibrant notebook filled with affirming graphics.

Dare to Write: Creative Writing Prompts f or Young People and Word Rebels Everywhere by Kristen Fogle

Themed-exercises help teens experiment with writing in a variety of genres such as sci-fi, crime fiction, romance, and fantasy.

Hope in the Mail: Reflections on Writing and Life by Wendelin Van Draanen

A writing resource woven through personal tales makes this memoir a great selection for young adults with publishing aspirations of their own.

How to Be a Young #Writer by Christopher Edge

Starting off the narrative strong and wrap it up equally as well! That’s the key focal point of this instructive text.

How to Write Poetry: A Guided Journal with Prompts to Ignite Your Imagination by Christopher Salerno

A primer in poetry fundamentals such as rhythm, rhyme, and meter.

Write Yourself a Lantern: A Journal Inspired by The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

National Book Award and Carnegie Medal winner Elizabeth Acevedo created this journal that incorporates includes memorable lines from The Poet X as lyrical prompts for teen poets.

Do you have a favorite creative writing book for teens? Share in the comments field below!

And if you need additional classroom ideas for lesson plans related to storytelling, peruse this list of Our Favorite Videos for Teaching Story Elements .

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15 Creative Writing Books for Tween & Teens

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How This Teacher Uses Paint Samples for Poetry, Short Stories, and More

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23 Books for Teaching Writing
4 - The Best Story by Eileen Spinelli. Theme: Writing from the Heart. This is one of the first books I get out each year from my set of books for teaching writing. I follow it up with a heart map graphic organizer. The main character in this book enters a contest at the library, trying to win for having the best story.
The 20+ Best Books on Creative Writing
Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin - Many writers consider this to be their bible on craft and storytelling. Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg - A favorite of many writers, this book takes an almost spiritual approach to the art, craft, and experience of writing.
5 Must-Read Professional Development Books for Writing Teachers
Strategic Writing. Deborah Dean. Writing Strategies is a great professional development book for any middle and high school teachers who want to think about ways to engage students with writing in a workshop framework. Deborah Dean offers some inspiration for walking students through meaningful revision activities.
Books
Books Since 1967, Teachers & Writers Collaborative has published over 80 books dedicated to teaching creative writing. Today, 42 titles are in print. Retailers and educational institutions may order our books directly through Ingram. Individuals may find our books at your local bookseller. Visit our booklist at Word Up Books, an NYC community bookstore, or…
Top 10 books about creative writing
4. Madness, Rack, and Honey by Mary Ruefle. The collected lectures of poet and professor Mary Ruefle present us with an erudite inquiry into some of the major aspects of a writer's mind and craft.
The best books on Creative Writing
The professor of creative writing at UEA says Joseph Conrad got it right when he said that the sitting down is all. He chooses five books to help aspiring writers. 1 Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande. 2 On Becoming a Novelist by John C. Gardner. 3 On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King.
Advice for Teachers Who Want to Write a Book
Sarah Cooper teaches 8th grade U.S. history and is dean of studies at Flintridge Preparatory School in La Canada, Calif. She is the author of two books, Creating Citizens (Routledge, 2018) and ...
Creative Writing Pedagogies for the Twenty-First Century
Creative Writing Pedagogies for the Twenty-First Century. Book. Edited by Alexandria Peary and Tom C. Hunley. 2015. Published by: Southern Illinois University Press. View. summary. The creative writing workshop: beloved by some, dreaded by others, and ubiquitous in writing programs across the nation. For decades, the workshop has been ...
Amazon.com: Teaching Creative Writing: 9780826477262: Harper, Graeme: Books
Annotated Edition. Teaching Creative Writing is a collection of twelve essays written by international experts in the field, with a critical introduction by Graeme Harper to the teaching and learning of the subject. The book includes: • Recommendations by authors of notable books/resources. Contributors cover the writing of short fiction ...
Teaching Creative Writing: 9781845285197: Amazon.com: Books
Publisher ‏ : ‎ How To Books (April 3, 2014) Language ‏ : ‎ English. ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1845285190. ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1845285197. Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.7 ounces. Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.85 x 0.67 x 9.25 inches. Best Sellers Rank: #583,375 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books) #505 in Lesson Planning for Educators. Customer Reviews:
The Best Books for Teaching High School Writing
Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano and Janet A. Hale's A Guide to Documenting Learning: Making Thinking Visible, Meaningful, Shareable, and Amplified (Corwin, 2018) provides a much-needed road map to shifting the focus of school (and writing!) from grades to learning. Working from the premise that learning and documenting—like writing—are ongoing ...
A Dozen Book Recommendations for New Writing Teachers
The No-Nonsense Guide to Teaching Writing: Strategies, Structures, and Solutions by Judy Davis and Sharon Hill (2003) — This book allows readers to get an overview for how to run writing workshop. The text is informative and easy to read. The appendix is a goldmine of forms teachers can adapt to meet their students' needs.
Introduction to Creative Writing: For Middle School & High School
Spectrum 8th Grade Writing Workbook, Ages 13 to 14, Grade 8 Writing Workbook Informative, Advertising, Persuasive, Letter, and Fiction Story Writing Prompts 8th Grade Workbook - 144 Pages Spectrum 4.6 out of 5 stars 1,442
A Practical Guide to Creative Writing in Schools
This book contains seven tried-and-tested creative writing projects for pupils aged 8-14. Each project is delivered through a series of workshops and enables pupils to explore a literary genre or writing style, discuss themes and topics and receive constructive feedback about their writing. The projects cover topics such as identity, cultural heritage, tolerance, empathy, morality, dreams ...
100 Best Creative Writing Books of All Time
The Artist's Way. Julia Cameron | 4.46. "Without The Artist's Way, there would have been no Eat, Pray, Love ." —Elizabeth Gilbert. A stunning gift edition of the powerful bestselling book on creativity. The Artist's Way is one of the bestselling gift books of all time.
29 Must-Have Professional Development Books for Teachers
Instead of valuing compliance, Couros writes, students should be taught to cultivate an innovative mind. In order to do this, educators must also become innovative thinkers - and this book shows you how. 2. Teaching with Intention: Defining Beliefs, Aligning Practice, Taking Action, K-5. by Debbie Miller.
10 Best Creative Writing Books to Read in 2023
10 Best Creative Writing Books to Read in 2023; Introduction: The world of creative writing possesses an extraordinary ability to unleash imagination, craft narratives, and evoke emotions that resonate with readers. Whether you're an aspiring writer or simply someone who appreciates the art of storytelling, consider Oxford Summer Courses. ...
23 Best Books For Learning To Write Fiction
Book #6: The Writing Experiment: strategies for innovative creative writing by Hazel Smith. This book is great for: Experimental writing. Hazel Smith is an Australian creative writing teacher and lecturer, who uses this book to: Theorise the process of writing. Champion experimental approaches.
The Top 50 Best Books for Teachers in 2023
The conceptual model illustrates key STEAM teaching aspects like integrating STEAM content and the correct teaching environment. One of the best STEAM-related professional development books for teachers, this book also offers strategies and elements of connected learning to help learners connect STEAM to real-world issues. 6.
Creative Writing Books: A Curated 2024 Updated List
by Anne Lamott. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott is a beloved book on creative writing that offers practical advice and humorous insights for aspiring writers. Lamott shares her personal experiences and wisdom on the creative process, tackling self-doubt, and finding inspiration.
15 Creative Writing Books for Teens & Tweens
15 Creative Writing Books for Tweens & Teens. Further ignite a passion for writing. By Rachel Werner. Dec 3, 2020. Helping kids build strong literacy skills can also ignite an interest in creative writing. Tweens and teens in particular may crave opportunities to express themselves via silly stories, dramatic narratives, or free-flowing verse.
20 Best Academic Writing Books of All Time
4.70 | 221 Pages. Academic Writing Academic Development Academic Paper Writing. The Third Edition of Introduction to Academic Writing, by Alice Oshima and Ann Hogue, continues in the tradition of helping students to master the standard organizational patterns of the paragraph and the basic concepts of essay writing.
Best Creative Writing Books For Teachers
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