Telling Stories: An Anthology for Writers

Telling Stories: An Anthology for Writers by Oates, Joyce Carol. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780393971767.

Oates’s chapter introductions and afterword on the writing workshop offer students encouragement, advice, and exercises for honing their skills.As a teacher, Oates emphasizes the importance of reading widely with enthusiasm, pleasure, and purpose. Telling Stories reflects this emphasis, introducing students to a variety of models for their own writing and encouraging them to concentrate on details, revise often, make material their own, experiment with genre, and ultimately find their own voice.Edited by a contemporary master of the storyteller’s art "who defines herself primarily as a friend of the text and a friend of the writer," Telling Stories is the perfect anthology for creative writing workshops and fiction classes and a wellspring of inspiration for any beginning writer."The love of storytelling—to hear stories, and to tell them—is universal in our species. Those with an apparent talent for writing. . . are not of a special breed but simply mirror the common human desire. [If] you have a natural talent for writing, and a love of the imagination, you risk a lifelong deprivation if you fail to cultivate it as vigorously as you can. Write your own ’great American novel‘. . . you’re talented, you’re intelligent, you have the driving passion, and you know as much as anyone about American life. Your story belongs uniquely to you." —Joyce Carol Oates, from the Introduction