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At the moment I am studying with the Open University in UK. I also own up to working for them. The course I am studying is creative writing and the course book is “Creative Writing, a workbook with readings”. It is edited by Linda Anderson and published by The OU and Routledge. This book is one to help you learn about different types of writing, from fiction to poetry, to life writing and throughout the book there are lots of exercises. If you need a starting point to get you motivated then I recommend this book. It is set out in such a way to give you ideas but also encourages you to find your own. One thing I enjoy about the book is that often it refers you back to something you have written earlier, so that you can develop it.

Another good thing is that it teaches you a way of writing and then gives you an example by a well-known writer to read. This not only shows what they are teaching but broadens the reader’s repertoire of texts. To be honest, if I wasn’t studying with a group of other students then perhaps I wouldn’t keep on with the exercises, but I can recommend the book if you have a lot of discipline. It has excellent activities and examples and is available from Amazon.

If you are interested in learning about poetry then a very readable book is Stephen Fry’s book, “The Ode Less Travelled” published by Arrow Books. His exercises help you to practise the basics of poetry and he gives clear explanations about different forms.

Another book which allows you to develop poetry expertise is Michael J. Bugeja’s book, “The Art of Poetry”. I had to purchase this from the US, so it took some time to arrive. The exercises in are at three levels, which means you can actually work through the book three times and in the end you should have a well crafted collection of poems. The book tells you how to write the different forms of poems and gives good examples. It is published by Writers Digest Books.

Your turn: The books I’ve mentioned above are self help books to help you learn new writing skills. Do you know of any good books that will help us learn a new skill. (It doesn’t have to be about writing.) If you do, please share them. Books that are tried and tested can be so useful and I’m sure we’d all love to hear about them.

Posted by Penny in Your Turn |

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 at 1:14 am and is filed under Your Turn. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.