Pines and Plains Libraries

The lives of twenty writers, ranging from Dickens, the Brontes, and Poe to Twain, Sandburg, and Langston Hughes, are profiled in this eclectic humorous and informative collection.

Every day throughout the world, people watch newscasts, read newspapers, and consume news online. But what goes into producing that news? How Journalists Work goes behind the scenes to give readers a glimpse at how reporters gather and synthesize information to produce the news reports that keep us informed. Easy-to-read text, vivid images, and helpful back matter give readers a clear look at this subject. Features include a table of contents, infographics,...

Kate Messner and Mark Siegel playfully chronicle the process of becoming a writer, from choosing an idea, creating a problem for your character to resolve, and - finally- coming to The End. How to Write a Story vividly illustrates the idea that the young writer who discovers the power of storytelling finds, at the end, the beginning.

Drawing from more than 25 years of literary know-how and modeled after a 15-week college course, this manual provides guidance for seekers wishing to delve further into self-exploration through writing. Extending beyond the idea that memoir writing intends to put past events into a more understandable current perspective, the guide maintains that keeping a document of one’s life is actually the basis of a psychic process called “soul work,” which...

In this semi-autobiographical picture book, author Patricia MacLachlan relates what it might take to grow up to become a writer.

Newbery Honor author Gail Carson Levine shares her secrets of making magic with your writing--Publisher-provided summary.

-- The Power Broker Now in paperback, Robert Caro gives us a glimpse into his own life and work in these evocatively written, personal pieces. He describes what it was like to interview the mighty Robert Moses and to begin discovering the extent of the political power Moses wielded; the combination of discouragement and exhilaration he felt confronting the vast holdings of the Lyndon B. Johnson Library in Austin, Texas; his encounters with witnesses,...

"In this lively nonfiction book for young readers, bestselling author Gail Carson Levine shares her secrets of great writing"--

A young woman who hopes to give up her bartending job to become a successful writer, Ivy Seidel falls under the spell of Vance Harrow, convicted for a terrible crime, while teaching writing to inmates at a maximum security prison.

Before there were workshops and degrees, how did aspiring writers learn to write? By reading the work of their predecessors and contemporaries, says author and teacher Prose. Prose invites you on a guided tour of the tools and the tricks of the masters. She reads the very best writers and discovers why their work has endured. She takes pleasure in the magnificent sentences of Philip Roth and the breathtaking paragraphs of Isaac Babel; she is moved...