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//DDD// On My Bookshelf: Writing for the Writer

By Maya Contreras, Editor-in-Chief, The DDD

Bell Hooks’ book Remembered Rapture: The Writer at Work opens with this quote from Virginia Woolf:

“When I ask you to write more books I am urging you to do what will be for your good and for the good of the world at large.”

Each offering of Hooks’ writing is a revealing look at her life, her writing process, and ultimately encouragement for those who are budding writers or who are looking to push through the doldrums of writer’s block.  Each chapter is peppered with advice taken straight from her life, one that she expresses both with vulnerability and strength, and just enough humor to find her relatable.

So too does Maya Angelou’s Wouldn’t Take Nothing For My Journey Now. Each chapter, or rather ‘essay’ is a finally tuned story, each with a lesson in strength and resilience. My favorite essay in this particular book for years has been, ‘Extending the Boundaries’ where at the upswing of her burgeoning success she felt slightly misunderstood, and just a little bit loveless.

The newest addition to my bookshelf has been Brooklyn author Zadie Smith’s Changing My Mind, a brilliant collection of essays dissecting with a lovingly critical eye the life and work of author’s such as E.M Forester to George Elliot.

Zadie Smith picks through the vast garden of literature, bringing her audience the most fragrant flowers asking only for us to breathe them in deeply. 

What these three books have in common is this: each share of themselves the academic and creative process of writing and the writer’s life throughout while minimizing any rules for the assembly of the novel or poem. However they all put an emphasis on life experience and having the courage to share it with others. 

Maya Contreras on Twitter, http://twitter.com/dirtydurty

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