The Sound on the Page: Great Writers Talk about Style and Voice in Writing

The Sound on the Page: Great Writers Talk about Style and Voice in Writing

Ben Yagoda
$17.99
Publication Date: June 28th, 2005
Publisher:
Harper Perennial
ISBN:
9780060938222
Pages:
304
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Description

In writing, style matters. Our favorite writers often entertain, move, and inspire us less by what they say than by how they say it. In The Sound on the Page, acclaimed author, teacher, and critic Ben Yagoda offers practical and incisive help for writers on developing and discovering their own style and voice. This wonderfully rich and readable book features interviews with more than 40 of our most important authors discussing their literary style, including:

Dave Barry
Harold Bloom
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer
Bill Bryson
Michael Chabon
Andrei Codrescu
Junot Díaz
Adam Gopnik
Jamaica Kincaid
Michael Kinsley
Elmore Leonard
Elizabeth McCracken
Susan Orlean
Cynthia Ozick
Anna Quindlen
Jonathan Raban
David Thomson
Tobias Wolff

About the Author

Ben Yagoda is the author of About Town: The New Yorker and the World It Made, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and Will Rogers. He is coeditor, with Kevin Kerrane, of The Art of Fact: A Historical Anthology of Literary Journalism, and has written for The New York Times Magazine, The American Scholar, Esquire, and many other publications. Yagoda directs the journalism department at the University of Delaware, where he teaches nonfiction writing. He lives in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, with his wife and two daughters.

Praise for The Sound on the Page: Great Writers Talk about Style and Voice in Writing

“...the right mix of seriousness and wit, anecdote and insight.” — Billy Collins

“...offers not only the author’s amazingly informative narrative, but points us toward...the trial and error inherent in creativity.” — Ann Beattie

“[Ben Yagoda] is witty and offhandedly erudite and unafraid to read between the lines...” — Ron Rosenbaum, author of Explaining Hitler and Secret Parts of Fortune

“This is an ingenious and memorable exploration of writing’s soul...” — Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down and Killing Pablo

“Ben Yagoda [is] the best kind of close reader, attentive to writerly choices that most of us take for granted.” — Wall Street Journal

“A shrewd, welcome meditation on literary style… that rarest of tomes: a splendidly written book about writing.” — Philadelphia Inquirer

“This entertaining and instructive book should be part of any writing collection.” — Library Journal

“A stylish exploration of developing a distinctive voice and writing style.” — Chicago Tribune