cover image Women Who Write: From the Past and the Present to the Future

Women Who Write: From the Past and the Present to the Future

Lucinda Irwin Smith. Julian Messner, $9.95 (165pp) ISBN 978-0-671-65669-0

Offering encouragement to readers still in the midst of making college and career choices, Smith's guide emits both platitudes and wisdom about the nature of writing (and creativity), sometimes from the mouths of others. Included are brief biographies of writers from the past--Lorraine Hansberry, Jane Austen, Anne Frank and Agatha Christie among them--and interviews with contemporary writers--such as Beth Henley, the late Norma Klein, a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle , Anne Tyler and Tama Janowitz. The look to the future is in the author's advice to aspiring writers: cultivate disciplined writing habits, have patience, read, etc. The biographies are rather pat; the interviews offer the most insight into the writing process: the women profiled often contradict one another (in their discussions of process, or their reasons for being writers), showing the creative act to be as varied as each writer's published or produced works. No ages given. (Sept.)