Author: Brandon S. Pilcher
Publisher: Open Books Press
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 166
Book Description
A headstrong Egyptian priestess, her brother, their sacked colony—and a rescue mission. When Itaweret’s beloved Per-Pehu falls to the tyrannical Scylax, she and her brother Bek lead a mission to save her captured people and depose Scylax. Along the way, they run into all kinds of perils, friends, and foes—and beasts sent by an angry goddess. Set in ancient Greece 3,500 years ago, this is a tale blending magical realism with history, high adventure with discovery . . . and Itaweret’s determination to save her people while learning her heart’s desires and realizing her deeper purpose.
Priestess of the Lost Colony
Author: Brandon S. Pilcher
Publisher: Open Books Press
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 166
Book Description
A headstrong Egyptian priestess, her brother, their sacked colony—and a rescue mission. When Itaweret’s beloved Per-Pehu falls to the tyrannical Scylax, she and her brother Bek lead a mission to save her captured people and depose Scylax. Along the way, they run into all kinds of perils, friends, and foes—and beasts sent by an angry goddess. Set in ancient Greece 3,500 years ago, this is a tale blending magical realism with history, high adventure with discovery . . . and Itaweret’s determination to save her people while learning her heart’s desires and realizing her deeper purpose.
Publisher: Open Books Press
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 166
Book Description
A headstrong Egyptian priestess, her brother, their sacked colony—and a rescue mission. When Itaweret’s beloved Per-Pehu falls to the tyrannical Scylax, she and her brother Bek lead a mission to save her captured people and depose Scylax. Along the way, they run into all kinds of perils, friends, and foes—and beasts sent by an angry goddess. Set in ancient Greece 3,500 years ago, this is a tale blending magical realism with history, high adventure with discovery . . . and Itaweret’s determination to save her people while learning her heart’s desires and realizing her deeper purpose.
Consider This
Author: Chuck Palahniuk
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN: 1538717964
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 201
Book Description
Renowned, bestselling novelist Chuck Palahniuk takes us behind the scenes of the writing life, with postcards from decades on the road and incredible examination of the power of fiction and the art of storytelling. In this spellbinding blend of memoir and insight, bestselling author Chuck Palahniuk shares stories and generous advice on what makes writing powerful and what makes for powerful writing. With advice grounded in years of careful study and a keenly observed life, Palahniuk combines practical advice and concrete examples from beloved classics, his own books, and a "kitchen-table MFA" culled from an evolving circle of beloved authors and artists, with anecdotes, postcards from the road, and much more. Clear-eyed, sensitive, illuminating, and knowledgeable, Consider This is Palahniuk's love letter to stories and storytellers, booksellers and books themselves. Consider it a classic in the making.
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN: 1538717964
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 201
Book Description
Renowned, bestselling novelist Chuck Palahniuk takes us behind the scenes of the writing life, with postcards from decades on the road and incredible examination of the power of fiction and the art of storytelling. In this spellbinding blend of memoir and insight, bestselling author Chuck Palahniuk shares stories and generous advice on what makes writing powerful and what makes for powerful writing. With advice grounded in years of careful study and a keenly observed life, Palahniuk combines practical advice and concrete examples from beloved classics, his own books, and a "kitchen-table MFA" culled from an evolving circle of beloved authors and artists, with anecdotes, postcards from the road, and much more. Clear-eyed, sensitive, illuminating, and knowledgeable, Consider This is Palahniuk's love letter to stories and storytellers, booksellers and books themselves. Consider it a classic in the making.
Writers' Forum
The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop
Author: Felicia Rose Chavez
Publisher: Haymarket Books
ISBN: 1642593877
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 164
Book Description
The Antiracist Writing Workshop is a call to create healthy, sustainable, and empowering artistic communities for a new millennium of writers. Inspired by June Jordan 's 1995 Poetry for the People, here is a blueprint for a 21st-century workshop model that protects and platforms writers of color. Instead of earmarking dusty anthologies, imagine workshop participants Skyping with contemporary writers of difference. Instead of tolerating bigoted criticism, imagine workshop participants moderating their own feedback sessions. Instead of yielding to the red-penned judgement of instructors, imagine workshop participants citing their own text in dialogue. The Antiracist Writing Workshop is essential reading for anyone looking to revolutionize the old workshop model into an enlightened, democratic counterculture.
Publisher: Haymarket Books
ISBN: 1642593877
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 164
Book Description
The Antiracist Writing Workshop is a call to create healthy, sustainable, and empowering artistic communities for a new millennium of writers. Inspired by June Jordan 's 1995 Poetry for the People, here is a blueprint for a 21st-century workshop model that protects and platforms writers of color. Instead of earmarking dusty anthologies, imagine workshop participants Skyping with contemporary writers of difference. Instead of tolerating bigoted criticism, imagine workshop participants moderating their own feedback sessions. Instead of yielding to the red-penned judgement of instructors, imagine workshop participants citing their own text in dialogue. The Antiracist Writing Workshop is essential reading for anyone looking to revolutionize the old workshop model into an enlightened, democratic counterculture.
October, October
Author: Katya Balen
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1526601915
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 164
Book Description
_______________ WINNER OF THE YOTO CARNEGIE MEDAL 2022 WINNER OF THE YOTO CARNEGIE SHADOWERS' CHOICE AWARD 2022 _______________ 'A very special new addition to the shelf and deserves classic status' - The Times Children's Book of the Week 'A modern classic ... relevant, comforting and life-affirming' - Scotsman 'The perfect Autumn read' - Primary Teacher Bookshelf _______________ A classic in the making for anyone who ever longed to be WILD. October and her dad live in the woods. They know the trees and the rocks and the lake and stars like best friends. They live in the woods and they are wild. And that's the way it is. Until the year October turns eleven. That's the year October rescues a baby owl. It's the year Dad falls out of the biggest tree in their woods. The year the woman who calls herself October's mother comes back. The year everything changes. Written in Katya Balen's heart-stoppingly beautiful style, this book is a feast for the senses. And, as October fights to find the space to be wild in the whirling chaos of the world beyond the woods, it is also a feast for the soul.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1526601915
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 164
Book Description
_______________ WINNER OF THE YOTO CARNEGIE MEDAL 2022 WINNER OF THE YOTO CARNEGIE SHADOWERS' CHOICE AWARD 2022 _______________ 'A very special new addition to the shelf and deserves classic status' - The Times Children's Book of the Week 'A modern classic ... relevant, comforting and life-affirming' - Scotsman 'The perfect Autumn read' - Primary Teacher Bookshelf _______________ A classic in the making for anyone who ever longed to be WILD. October and her dad live in the woods. They know the trees and the rocks and the lake and stars like best friends. They live in the woods and they are wild. And that's the way it is. Until the year October turns eleven. That's the year October rescues a baby owl. It's the year Dad falls out of the biggest tree in their woods. The year the woman who calls herself October's mother comes back. The year everything changes. Written in Katya Balen's heart-stoppingly beautiful style, this book is a feast for the senses. And, as October fights to find the space to be wild in the whirling chaos of the world beyond the woods, it is also a feast for the soul.
Scratch
Author: Manjula Martin
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501134590
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
A collection of essays from today’s most acclaimed authors—from Cheryl Strayed to Roxane Gay to Jennifer Weiner, Alexander Chee, Nick Hornby, and Jonathan Franzen—on the realities of making a living in the writing world. In the literary world, the debate around writing and commerce often begs us to take sides: either writers should be paid for everything they do or writers should just pay their dues and count themselves lucky to be published. You should never quit your day job, but your ultimate goal should be to quit your day job. It’s an endless, confusing, and often controversial conversation that, despite our bare-it-all culture, still remains taboo. In Scratch, Manjula Martin has gathered interviews and essays from established and rising authors to confront the age-old question: how do creative people make money? As contributors including Jonathan Franzen, Cheryl Strayed, Roxane Gay, Nick Hornby, Susan Orlean, Alexander Chee, Daniel Jose Older, Jennifer Weiner, and Yiyun Li candidly and emotionally discuss money, MFA programs, teaching fellowships, finally getting published, and what success really means to them, Scratch honestly addresses the tensions between writing and money, work and life, literature and commerce. The result is an entertaining and inspiring book that helps readers and writers understand what it’s really like to make art in a world that runs on money—and why it matters. Essential reading for aspiring and experienced writers, and for anyone interested in the future of literature, Scratch is the perfect bookshelf companion to On Writing, Never Can Say Goodbye, and MFA vs. NYC.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1501134590
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
A collection of essays from today’s most acclaimed authors—from Cheryl Strayed to Roxane Gay to Jennifer Weiner, Alexander Chee, Nick Hornby, and Jonathan Franzen—on the realities of making a living in the writing world. In the literary world, the debate around writing and commerce often begs us to take sides: either writers should be paid for everything they do or writers should just pay their dues and count themselves lucky to be published. You should never quit your day job, but your ultimate goal should be to quit your day job. It’s an endless, confusing, and often controversial conversation that, despite our bare-it-all culture, still remains taboo. In Scratch, Manjula Martin has gathered interviews and essays from established and rising authors to confront the age-old question: how do creative people make money? As contributors including Jonathan Franzen, Cheryl Strayed, Roxane Gay, Nick Hornby, Susan Orlean, Alexander Chee, Daniel Jose Older, Jennifer Weiner, and Yiyun Li candidly and emotionally discuss money, MFA programs, teaching fellowships, finally getting published, and what success really means to them, Scratch honestly addresses the tensions between writing and money, work and life, literature and commerce. The result is an entertaining and inspiring book that helps readers and writers understand what it’s really like to make art in a world that runs on money—and why it matters. Essential reading for aspiring and experienced writers, and for anyone interested in the future of literature, Scratch is the perfect bookshelf companion to On Writing, Never Can Say Goodbye, and MFA vs. NYC.
Modern Fortran
Author: Milan Curcic
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1638350051
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 414
Book Description
Modern Fortran teaches you to develop fast, efficient parallel applications using twenty-first-century Fortran. In this guide, you’ll dive into Fortran by creating fun apps, including a tsunami simulator and a stock price analyzer. Filled with real-world use cases, insightful illustrations, and hands-on exercises, Modern Fortran helps you see this classic language in a whole new light. Summary Using Fortran, early and accurate forecasts for hurricanes and other major storms have saved thousands of lives. Better designs for ships, planes, and automobiles have made travel safer, more efficient, and less expensive than ever before. Using Fortran, low-level machine learning and deep learning libraries provide incredibly easy, fast, and insightful analysis of massive data. Fortran is an amazingly powerful and flexible programming language that forms the foundation of high performance computing for research, science, and industry. And it's come a long, long way since starting life on IBM mainframes in 1956. Modern Fortran is natively parallel, so it's uniquely suited for efficiently handling problems like complex simulations, long-range predictions, and ultra-precise designs. If you're working on tasks where speed, accuracy, and efficiency matter, it's time to discover—or re-discover—Fortran.. About the technology For over 60 years Fortran has been powering mission-critical scientific applications, and it isn't slowing down yet! Rock-solid reliability and new support for parallel programming make Fortran an essential language for next-generation high-performance computing. Simply put, the future is in parallel, and Fortran is already there. Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications. About the book Modern Fortran teaches you to develop fast, efficient parallel applications using twenty-first-century Fortran. In this guide, you'll dive into Fortran by creating fun apps, including a tsunami simulator and a stock price analyzer. Filled with real-world use cases, insightful illustrations, and hands-on exercises, Modern Fortran helps you see this classic language in a whole new light. What's inside Fortran's place in the modern world Working with variables, arrays, and functions Module development Parallelism with coarrays, teams, and events Interoperating Fortran with C About the reader For developers and computational scientists. No experience with Fortran required. About the author Milan Curcic is a meteorologist, oceanographer, and author of several general-purpose Fortran libraries and applications. Table of Contents PART 1 - GETTING STARTED WITH MODERN FORTRAN 1 Introducing Fortran 2 Getting started: Minimal working app PART 2 - CORE ELEMENTS OF FORTRAN 3 Writing reusable code with functions and subroutines 4 Organizing your Fortran code using modules 5 Analyzing time series data with arrays 6 Reading, writing, and formatting your data PART 3 - ADVANCED FORTRAN USE 7 Going parallel with Fortan coarrays 8 Working with abstract data using derived types 9 Generic procedures and operators for any data type 10 User-defined operators for derived types PART 4 - THE FINAL STRETCH 11 Interoperability with C: Exposing your app to the web 12 Advanced parallelism with teams, events, and collectives
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1638350051
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 414
Book Description
Modern Fortran teaches you to develop fast, efficient parallel applications using twenty-first-century Fortran. In this guide, you’ll dive into Fortran by creating fun apps, including a tsunami simulator and a stock price analyzer. Filled with real-world use cases, insightful illustrations, and hands-on exercises, Modern Fortran helps you see this classic language in a whole new light. Summary Using Fortran, early and accurate forecasts for hurricanes and other major storms have saved thousands of lives. Better designs for ships, planes, and automobiles have made travel safer, more efficient, and less expensive than ever before. Using Fortran, low-level machine learning and deep learning libraries provide incredibly easy, fast, and insightful analysis of massive data. Fortran is an amazingly powerful and flexible programming language that forms the foundation of high performance computing for research, science, and industry. And it's come a long, long way since starting life on IBM mainframes in 1956. Modern Fortran is natively parallel, so it's uniquely suited for efficiently handling problems like complex simulations, long-range predictions, and ultra-precise designs. If you're working on tasks where speed, accuracy, and efficiency matter, it's time to discover—or re-discover—Fortran.. About the technology For over 60 years Fortran has been powering mission-critical scientific applications, and it isn't slowing down yet! Rock-solid reliability and new support for parallel programming make Fortran an essential language for next-generation high-performance computing. Simply put, the future is in parallel, and Fortran is already there. Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications. About the book Modern Fortran teaches you to develop fast, efficient parallel applications using twenty-first-century Fortran. In this guide, you'll dive into Fortran by creating fun apps, including a tsunami simulator and a stock price analyzer. Filled with real-world use cases, insightful illustrations, and hands-on exercises, Modern Fortran helps you see this classic language in a whole new light. What's inside Fortran's place in the modern world Working with variables, arrays, and functions Module development Parallelism with coarrays, teams, and events Interoperating Fortran with C About the reader For developers and computational scientists. No experience with Fortran required. About the author Milan Curcic is a meteorologist, oceanographer, and author of several general-purpose Fortran libraries and applications. Table of Contents PART 1 - GETTING STARTED WITH MODERN FORTRAN 1 Introducing Fortran 2 Getting started: Minimal working app PART 2 - CORE ELEMENTS OF FORTRAN 3 Writing reusable code with functions and subroutines 4 Organizing your Fortran code using modules 5 Analyzing time series data with arrays 6 Reading, writing, and formatting your data PART 3 - ADVANCED FORTRAN USE 7 Going parallel with Fortan coarrays 8 Working with abstract data using derived types 9 Generic procedures and operators for any data type 10 User-defined operators for derived types PART 4 - THE FINAL STRETCH 11 Interoperability with C: Exposing your app to the web 12 Advanced parallelism with teams, events, and collectives
The Science of Storytelling
Author: Will Storr
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 168335818X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
The compelling, groundbreaking guide to creative writing that reveals how the brain responds to storytelling Stories shape who we are. They drive us to act out our dreams and ambitions and mold our beliefs. Storytelling is an essential part of what makes us human. So, how do master storytellers compel us? In The Science of Storytelling, award-winning writer and acclaimed teacher of creative writing Will Storr applies dazzling psychological research and cutting-edge neuroscience to our myths and archetypes to show how we can write better stories, revealing, among other things, how storytellers—and also our brains—create worlds by being attuned to moments of unexpected change. Will Storr’s superbly chosen examples range from Harry Potter to Jane Austen to Alice Walker, Greek drama to Russian novels to Native American folk tales, King Lear to Breaking Bad to children’s stories. With sections such as “The Dramatic Question,” “Creating a World,” and “Plot, Endings, and Meaning,” as well as a practical, step-by-step appendix dedicated to “The Sacred Flaw Approach,” The Science of Storytelling reveals just what makes stories work, placing it alongside such creative writing classics as John Yorke’s Into the Woods: A Five-Act Journey into Story and Lajos Egri’s The Art of Dramatic Writing. Enlightening and empowering, The Science of Storytelling is destined to become an invaluable resource for writers of all stripes, whether novelist, screenwriter, playwright, or writer of creative or traditional nonfiction.
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 168335818X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 304
Book Description
The compelling, groundbreaking guide to creative writing that reveals how the brain responds to storytelling Stories shape who we are. They drive us to act out our dreams and ambitions and mold our beliefs. Storytelling is an essential part of what makes us human. So, how do master storytellers compel us? In The Science of Storytelling, award-winning writer and acclaimed teacher of creative writing Will Storr applies dazzling psychological research and cutting-edge neuroscience to our myths and archetypes to show how we can write better stories, revealing, among other things, how storytellers—and also our brains—create worlds by being attuned to moments of unexpected change. Will Storr’s superbly chosen examples range from Harry Potter to Jane Austen to Alice Walker, Greek drama to Russian novels to Native American folk tales, King Lear to Breaking Bad to children’s stories. With sections such as “The Dramatic Question,” “Creating a World,” and “Plot, Endings, and Meaning,” as well as a practical, step-by-step appendix dedicated to “The Sacred Flaw Approach,” The Science of Storytelling reveals just what makes stories work, placing it alongside such creative writing classics as John Yorke’s Into the Woods: A Five-Act Journey into Story and Lajos Egri’s The Art of Dramatic Writing. Enlightening and empowering, The Science of Storytelling is destined to become an invaluable resource for writers of all stripes, whether novelist, screenwriter, playwright, or writer of creative or traditional nonfiction.
Every Body Looking
Author: Candice Iloh
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525556214
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 418
Book Description
A Finalist for the National Book Award When Ada leaves home for her freshman year at a Historically Black College, it’s the first time she’s ever been so far from her family—and the first time that she’s been able to make her own choices and to seek her place in this new world. As she stumbles deeper into the world of dance and explores her sexuality, she also begins to wrestle with her past—her mother’s struggle with addiction, her Nigerian father’s attempts to make a home for her. Ultimately, Ada discovers she needs to brush off the destiny others have chosen for her and claim full ownership of her body and her future. “Candice Iloh’s beautifully crafted narrative about family, belonging, sexuality, and telling our deepest truths in order to be whole is at once immensely readable and ultimately healing.”—Jacqueline Woodson, New York Times Bestselling Author of Brown Girl Dreaming “An essential—and emotionally gripping and masterfully written and compulsively readable—addition to the coming-of-age canon.”—Nic Stone, New York Times Bestselling Author of Dear Martin “This is a story about the sometimes toxic and heavy expectations set onthe backs of first-generation children, the pressures woven into the familydynamic, culturally and socially. About childhood secrets with sharp teeth. And ultimately, about a liberation that taunts every young person.” —Jason Reynolds, New York Times Bestselling Author of Long Way Down
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525556214
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 418
Book Description
A Finalist for the National Book Award When Ada leaves home for her freshman year at a Historically Black College, it’s the first time she’s ever been so far from her family—and the first time that she’s been able to make her own choices and to seek her place in this new world. As she stumbles deeper into the world of dance and explores her sexuality, she also begins to wrestle with her past—her mother’s struggle with addiction, her Nigerian father’s attempts to make a home for her. Ultimately, Ada discovers she needs to brush off the destiny others have chosen for her and claim full ownership of her body and her future. “Candice Iloh’s beautifully crafted narrative about family, belonging, sexuality, and telling our deepest truths in order to be whole is at once immensely readable and ultimately healing.”—Jacqueline Woodson, New York Times Bestselling Author of Brown Girl Dreaming “An essential—and emotionally gripping and masterfully written and compulsively readable—addition to the coming-of-age canon.”—Nic Stone, New York Times Bestselling Author of Dear Martin “This is a story about the sometimes toxic and heavy expectations set onthe backs of first-generation children, the pressures woven into the familydynamic, culturally and socially. About childhood secrets with sharp teeth. And ultimately, about a liberation that taunts every young person.” —Jason Reynolds, New York Times Bestselling Author of Long Way Down
Daily Rituals: Women at Work
Author: Mason Currey
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 1524732966
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 417
Book Description
More of Mason Currey's irresistible Daily Rituals, this time exploring the daily obstacles and rituals of women who are artists--painters, composers, sculptors, scientists, filmmakers, and performers. We see how these brilliant minds get to work, the choices they have to make: rebuffing convention, stealing (or secreting away) time from the pull of husbands, wives, children, obligations, in order to create their creations. From those who are the masters of their craft (Eudora Welty, Lynn Fontanne, Penelope Fitzgerald, Marie Curie) to those who were recognized in a burst of acclaim (Lorraine Hansberry, Zadie Smith) . . . from Clara Schumann and Shirley Jackson, carving out small amounts of time from family life, to Isadora Duncan and Agnes Martin, rejecting the demands of domesticity, Currey shows us the large and small (and abiding) choices these women made--and continue to make--for their art: Isak Dinesen, "I promised the Devil my soul, and in return he promised me that everything I was going to experience would be turned into tales," Dinesen subsisting on oysters and Champagne but also amphetamines, which gave her the overdrive she required . . . And the rituals (daily and otherwise) that guide these artists: Isabel Allende starting a new book only on January 8th . . . Hilary Mantel taking a shower to combat writers' block ("I am the cleanest person I know") . . . Tallulah Bankhead coping with her three phobias (hating to go to bed, hating to get up, and hating to be alone), which, could she "mute them," would make her life "as slick as a sonnet, but as dull as ditch water" . . . Lillian Hellman chain-smoking three packs of cigarettes and drinking twenty cups of coffee a day--and, after milking the cow and cleaning the barn, writing out of "elation, depression, hope" ("That is the exact order. Hope sets in toward nightfall. That's when you tell yourself that you're going to be better the next time, so help you God.") . . . Diane Arbus, doing what "gnaws at" her . . . Colette, locked in her writing room by her first husband, Henry Gauthier-Villars (nom de plume: Willy) and not being "let out" until completing her daily quota (she wrote five pages a day and threw away the fifth). Colette later said, "A prison is one of the best workshops" . . . Jessye Norman disdaining routines or rituals of any kind, seeing them as "a crutch" . . . and Octavia Butler writing every day no matter what ("screw inspiration"). Germaine de Staël . . . Elizabeth Barrett Browning . . . George Eliot . . . Edith Wharton . . . Virginia Woolf . . . Edna Ferber . . . Doris Lessing . . . Pina Bausch . . . Frida Kahlo . . . Marguerite Duras . . . Helen Frankenthaler . . . Patti Smith, and 131 more--on their daily routines, superstitions, fears, eating (and drinking) habits, and other finely (and not so finely) calibrated rituals that help summon up willpower and self-discipline, keeping themselves afloat with optimism and fight, as they create (and avoid creating) their creations.
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 1524732966
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 417
Book Description
More of Mason Currey's irresistible Daily Rituals, this time exploring the daily obstacles and rituals of women who are artists--painters, composers, sculptors, scientists, filmmakers, and performers. We see how these brilliant minds get to work, the choices they have to make: rebuffing convention, stealing (or secreting away) time from the pull of husbands, wives, children, obligations, in order to create their creations. From those who are the masters of their craft (Eudora Welty, Lynn Fontanne, Penelope Fitzgerald, Marie Curie) to those who were recognized in a burst of acclaim (Lorraine Hansberry, Zadie Smith) . . . from Clara Schumann and Shirley Jackson, carving out small amounts of time from family life, to Isadora Duncan and Agnes Martin, rejecting the demands of domesticity, Currey shows us the large and small (and abiding) choices these women made--and continue to make--for their art: Isak Dinesen, "I promised the Devil my soul, and in return he promised me that everything I was going to experience would be turned into tales," Dinesen subsisting on oysters and Champagne but also amphetamines, which gave her the overdrive she required . . . And the rituals (daily and otherwise) that guide these artists: Isabel Allende starting a new book only on January 8th . . . Hilary Mantel taking a shower to combat writers' block ("I am the cleanest person I know") . . . Tallulah Bankhead coping with her three phobias (hating to go to bed, hating to get up, and hating to be alone), which, could she "mute them," would make her life "as slick as a sonnet, but as dull as ditch water" . . . Lillian Hellman chain-smoking three packs of cigarettes and drinking twenty cups of coffee a day--and, after milking the cow and cleaning the barn, writing out of "elation, depression, hope" ("That is the exact order. Hope sets in toward nightfall. That's when you tell yourself that you're going to be better the next time, so help you God.") . . . Diane Arbus, doing what "gnaws at" her . . . Colette, locked in her writing room by her first husband, Henry Gauthier-Villars (nom de plume: Willy) and not being "let out" until completing her daily quota (she wrote five pages a day and threw away the fifth). Colette later said, "A prison is one of the best workshops" . . . Jessye Norman disdaining routines or rituals of any kind, seeing them as "a crutch" . . . and Octavia Butler writing every day no matter what ("screw inspiration"). Germaine de Staël . . . Elizabeth Barrett Browning . . . George Eliot . . . Edith Wharton . . . Virginia Woolf . . . Edna Ferber . . . Doris Lessing . . . Pina Bausch . . . Frida Kahlo . . . Marguerite Duras . . . Helen Frankenthaler . . . Patti Smith, and 131 more--on their daily routines, superstitions, fears, eating (and drinking) habits, and other finely (and not so finely) calibrated rituals that help summon up willpower and self-discipline, keeping themselves afloat with optimism and fight, as they create (and avoid creating) their creations.