Word After Word After Word

I am a bit of a sucker for books about writing.  I love Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird and Stephen King's On Writing.  I like to know what writers think and the process they follow as they create these creatures that fill so many shelves of my life.

Roger Rosenblatt is an Author with a capital "A".  He writes essays, fiction, memoirs, and plays. He is also a teacher, currently with the Stony Brook University Writers Program. Who better to write a book about writing?

I was not disappointed.  Rosenblatt tells us about good writing  as he describes a semester with a MFA class called "Writing Everything." The students in the class, their work, their comments are all springboards for nuggets of wisdom.  At one point he tells his class, "I believe in spare writing. Precise and restrained writing. I like short sentences. Fragmented sentences sometimes,  I enjoy dropping in exotic words from time to time.  Either they put off readers or drive them to the dictionary."

Not every writer would agree with Roger Rosenblatt. But his lessons are straightforward and clear.  He is always kind in his criticism and often a little sarcastic with his praise.  He can laugh at himself and allows his students to do the same.  He may feel great affection for his students, but he is no cream puff. He leaves room for them to find the flaws in their own work and to learn to become better writers.

Finally, what I liked most about this book is that in describing his class and his teaching, Rosenblatt writes with ease and elegance and beauty.  That may be a few too many adjectives, but I needed them.  Rosenblatt ends the book with this, "Both you and the human heart are full of sorrow.  But only one of you can speak for the sorrow and ease its burdens and make it sing - word after word after word".   This one sings for me.......