Book: Mentors, Muses, and Monsters: 30 Writers on the People
Who Changed Their Lives
Editor: Elizabeth Benedict
Published: 2009 (Free Press)
Pages: 268
I got a hell of a lot of future reading list ideas and also
more dream fuel for my MFA plans from this, but not as much inspiration as any
of these contributing authors got from the people or books they talk about
here.
It’s a great idea. I kind of doubt the editor’s assertion that
she couldn’t find ANY book on authors’ inspirations on Amazon when she was
doing research for this (really? NONE? IN 2009?), but I love reading what makes
writers tick and where they get stuff from because I know firsthand how
different the voodoo is for each person.
But these essays did start sounding the same after awhile.
The best ones where when writers talked about formative experiences (apparently
you can be a waiter at one writing retreat and they let you read your stuff and
write and take classes while you’re there too) instead of actual people as
mentors. Of course all the mentors are going to be supportive and maybe
outwardly crusty and terrifying but they all have the familiar – and similar –
squishy guiding light center that all good teachers share.
Not that those mentors deserve all the praise they can get.
This one’s staying on the booktruck bookshelf for the afore mentioned booklist
growth, mostly, but also, I did like reading it from a pure lit geek point of
view. I don’t know if any genre writer or journalist or screenwriter would find
much here, though, and I think that’s why the stories smooth together like they
do. Anyway, I like it in maybe a more specific way than it was meant, so it’s
staying.
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