Book Reviews: Writers on Writing

Have you ever wondered what sets “the great writers” apart from the average writers? Have you ever wondered how to up your own writing, and move from average into award-winning content? Would you like personalized writing coaching to help you achieve your creative dreams?

Are you looking for inspiration? Direction? Writing coach Chip Scanlan offers that and more in his new book, Writers on Writing: Inside the Lives of 55 Distinguished Writers and Editors. Chip’s challenge when writing this book was to discover the thinking, the process, and the skills of great writers and to share them with others.

Writers on Writing was published in October of 2021 by indie publisher BooksGoSocial.

What initially caught my attention was this book's cover. The yellow background is bright, inviting like a sunny day. And the image of a classic typewriter, one that looks very much like own my very first typewriter back in the late 1970's, instantly summons forth everything about writing that captured my imagination so many decades ago.

Scanlan presents fifty-five mini interviews with a wide-range of authors, journalists and editors. He gives each person four questions - the same four questions, recording their answers to help other writers hone their craft. A simple and brillant approach that yields quite a bit of useful advice. And from each chapter Scanlan generates additional prompts for the reader to consider for their own writing exercises or things to add to their own journal of writing reflections. This last part really makes this collection an interactive resource - it is "showing and not just telling" (my favorite writing advice).

As someone who hosts a monthly writers group program for the local public library where I work, I found this writing resource to be very valuable indeed. This is exactly the type of book that I would add to my own personal library of writing references, and I would recommend other writers (aspiring and experienced) to do the same.