The Writer on Her Work, Volume I

by Anne Tyler

This is a book that celebrates diversity. In these essays, most of them commissioned for this collection, notable women writers examine their lives and their work. The contributors include novelists, poets, and writers of nonfiction—among them, Mary Gordon, Joan Didion, Maxine Hong Kingston, Gail Godwin, Erica Jong, Muriel Rukeyser, Nancy Milford, Anne Tyler, and Alice Walker.


The essays explore such themes as the impulse to write; the struggles and satisfactions of writing; the conflict between the need for solitude and family obligation; the relationship of the writer to her past, to literature, and to womanhood. Each writer approaches her subject from her own angle of vision, each speaks in her own voice. All are taking stock, asking themselves, "How did I come to be doing what I'm doing? On what terms? With what critical choices?"


In "Becoming a Writer," Gail Godwin traces her development as her mother's daughter. Maxine Hong Kingston conjures a vision of what she calls "The Coming Book." Nancy Milford tells a story that touches the core of her impulse to write biography. Anne Tyler considers how she balances fiction and daily life.


This is a collection that reaches out to the ways in which people lead their complicated and various lives. Each essay, rich and personal and concrete, gives an immediate sense of what it is like, right now, to be a woman who writes.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Essays, Womens, Crafts, Gender Studies, Anthologies

286 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She graduated at nineteen from Duke University and went on to do graduate work in Russian studies at Columbia University. She has published 20 novels, her debut novel being If Morning Ever Comes in (1964). Her eleventh novel, Breathing Lessons , was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of essays and talks (even an extended poem from Ursula Le Guin) by women on writing. It covers what, why and how they write and what the obstacles are. The contributions are variable in quality, but they are all worth reading. Contributors include Margaret Attwood, Joan Didion, Erica Jong, Alice Walker, Margaret Walker, Anne Tyler, Diane Johnson, Mary Gordon and others. None are more than a dozen or so pages and provide an insight into the minds of the writers. Some are very personal, others more didactic.
Of course there are insights into the attitudes of society and of men. Mary Gordon’s anecdote is particularly horrific as she reports a story told to her by a famous male writer in 1971. Sadly she doesn’t say which writer it was.
“I will tell you what women writers are like. Women writers are like a female bear who goes into a cave to hibernate. The male bear shoves a pine cone up her ass, because he knows if she shits all winter she’ll stink up the cave. In spring the pressure of all that built up shit makes her expel the pine cone, and she shits a winter’s worth all over the walls of the cave. That’ what women writers are like.”
That sort of left me speechless. Gordon goes on to say she stopped writing for two months after that. However she also argues that there much more of a community of female writers who are mutually supportive than there is of men. Alice Walker writes powerfully about being a writer and a mother and also about being a black writer amongst white writers, even white feminist writers. Margaret Walker’s essay entitled On Being Female, Black and Free foreshadows the Black Lives matter movement.
This is the virago edition, a collection put together from the two original volumes published ten years apart. It is a fascinating insight into the art of writing and into its challenges.

[Meredith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly, I don't have much to say about this. It might be because I haven't fully processed some of the essays I read to the point where I can sufficiently talk about them. A lot of the essays acted as a balm to my soul. It was interesting to see that a lot of the struggles women face today are almost the exact same. I wasn't exactly surprised, but it made their words feel even more pressing.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Joan Didion's essay was brilliant (but it wasn't written for this book, just borrowed for it). I enjoyed Anne Tyler's and Gail Godwin's and a few others, but actively did not enjoy quite a number of these pieces for their self-consciousness and preciousness.

[Melissa]

Strange to read a book and then go in to Goodreads to record my thoughts and find I'd read it exactly a decade ago. This time around, I find I like it better, perhaps because I'm at an age now where I can read these words and understand them more viscerally. I enjoy reading other writers' words about their experiences and their ideas on craft, but I also enjoy when they are willing to be more vulnerable and share more personally than creative-professionally, and this collection does that kind of work intentionally.

[Khulud Khamis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book! You know the infamous quote about writing being easy, and that all you have to do is sit at the typewriter until beads of blood appear on your forehead? Well, this book is all about demystifying this tragic image of the suffering artist. Here, women write with raw power and fierce honesty about their writing. Each essay is unique and takes the reader into the internet experience of the writer. What does it take to be a woman writer? Here, women writers talk about how their identity has shaped who they are as writers. Margaret Walker's essay, On Being Female, Black, and Free really hit home for me. Other writers talk about the challenges of becoming a writer. One writer talks about how every time she carved out some time to write, life interfered: a child became sick, the dog needed to be taken to the vet, she needed to attend a school meeting, had to go do grocery shopping. Some of them talk about how their childhoods shaped the way they became writers. This is a book for anyone interested in the challenges facing women writers, and how, ultimately, their passion and need for writing and for telling stories triumphs. The book was originally published in 1981, and this is a reprinted edition, published in 2000 with a new preface by Julia Alvarez. There is a second volume of more essays, which I am so happy about, as I love reading about the process of writing and the shaping of women writers.

[Sharon Ouderkirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are actually two volumes of The Writer on Her Work. The one that I read was the first volume. Some of the writers were hindered by their sense of self-importance, but I enjoyed quite a few of the essays. The book I read included the original Introduction and the updated Introduction from the 2000 reissue, both by Janet Sternburg, and a wonderful preface by Julia Alvarez, who injected energy into the discussion of women and writing.
Anne Tyler: Still Just Writing. Surprisingly, for Anne Tyler, I thought this was a weak essay, and fairly bland.
Joan Didion: Why I Write. Didion stole her title from George Orwell, and talks about the 'I' sound in the three words. The rest of her essay is about incidents that she has used in her work. It was an OK essay.
Mary Gordon: The Parable of the Cave, or In Praise of Watercolors. Gordon added a lot of anger to the mix as she discussed the difficulties and prejudiced attitudes that women writers face. I think it's a good historical look, but really, women writers dominate best-seller lists, so although there may still be the dismissive Hemingway males out there, no one listens to them.
Nancy Milford: De Memoria, Milford provided a moving story about love and memory.
Honor Moore: My Grandmother Who Painted. Moore's grandmother is painer Margarett Sargeant, who was quite talented, but whose career was hindered by mental health issues. Excellent essay.
Michele Murray: Creating Onself from Scratch. Murray's entry was a diary that detailed her frustrations with the demands of family that made writing very difficult. Sadly, her first book of poems was published after her early death.
Margaret Walker, On Being Female, Black and Free. An essay about the challenges of being a black female, and overlooked even before you are given a chance. I felt bad for Walker, and for other women who have been ignored because of their race. I don't think this essay can count as historical record yet; seems to be a pretty current problem.
Susan Griffin, Thoughts on Writing, A Diary. I have always found Griffin to be pretentious. Sometimes, she says something that resonates, but when I stop to think about the logic, the thought seems to dissipate into a passing breeze, and I am left with nothing. Sorry, Susan, but that is how I feel.
Alice Walker, One Child of One's Own: A Meaningful Digression Within the Work(s). By far the most radical of the essays, Walker was bravely outspoken and did not dance around her truth of being a black, female writer, who is often ignored, or on the limitations that are placed on women who have families. No doubt her essay ruffles feathers, but personally, I was cheering her on.
Ingrid Bengis: The Middle Period. An autobiographical look on writer inspiration.
Toni Cade Bambara, What it Is I Think I am Doing Anyhow. I felt great affection for Cade Banbara's voice - such kindness and love and compassion. I was very sorry to read the end notes that reported her early death. I will add her to my reading list, as I have not read anything by her
Erica Jong: Blood and Guts: The Tricky Problem of Being a Woman Writer in the Late Twentieth Century. Very energetic, and gutsy and enjoyable
Maxine Hong Kingston: The Coming Book. Observations on the writing process. This essay did not really stay with me.
Janet Burroway: Opening Nights: The Opening Days. Diary entries about her process as she was finishing a novel. I didn't find this essay too involving.
Muriel Rukeyser: The Education of a Poet. Rukeyser mixed her poetry in with her prose to write about her path to becoming a poet.
Gail Godwin: Becoming a Writer. A real treat - Godwin got added to my must read list after I read this essay which relates her childhood with her writer mother who wrote romances, while living a hard life. Loved this essay, loved Godwin's voice, MUST READ MORE!

[Bobbie Darbyshire · Rating 4 out of 5]

First published in 1981, seventeen essays by American women writers.
A pudding with some plums in it. I bought it because I read somewhere that one of the essayists was the wonderful Anne Tyler, who offers an absorbing window into her daily life as wife, mother and, when she can fit it in, novelist.
Alice Walker makes a brilliant, funny, passionate case for a woman writer to have a child, but only ONE.
Erica Jong is pretty good too.
With no prejudice on my part, it was the writers I’d heard of that most impressed me, but Janet Burroway, unknown to me, deserves mention—I immediately wanted to read the novel she wrote brilliantly about writing. Here is a quote from her: “the angst of right now is having written enough to have spoiled the amorphous luminous Whole Idea of it that exists in your mind before you start, but not enough to have got hold of the specific thing it will be, who they are, what will happen.”
I was less engaged by the contributors who focused on the politics of self-assertion as a woman or woman of colour—I had no fault to find with them, but they didn’t hook me with narrative like the best essayists did.

[M.J. Compton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read this book in 1981. I loved it. I enjoy going back and re-reading certain essays in it. Publishing may have changed in the 40 interim years, but the plight of female authors being taken seriously has not. It is a topic I discuss with my husband regularly, generally about movies. He does not understand that men decided what topics are "important" and what ones aren't and our entire culture has been conditioned to believe the male myth.

Off my soap box.

[Libraryassistant · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was such a split for me, perhaps because about half of it was not what I expected/hoped for, being more about social inequality than directly about their work. In the context of the time it was written, perhaps I should have expected this. But some of the essays were exactly what I hoped. I loved Anne Tyler’s Still Just Writing, and enjoyed Nancy Milford. I was not familiar with either Michele Murray or Muriel Rukeyser but ended by looking up some of their work.

[Lyna M. Perez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, it is a great collection with insight on the personal lives of women writers. Some of the essays, though, are overly long. I found one or two of essays painfully boring. However, the few that resonated with me were more than worth wading through the rest.

[Lorraine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent collection of essays published in 1980 on the writing process: what it means to be a writer and a woman and a woman writer. Very interesting snapshot of the late 20th century and would make useful reading for a course about women's writing.

[Isabelle B.L · Rating 5 out of 5]

The five stars are without a doubt for Anne Tyler's Essay and the heart-wrenching , moving diary entries of Michele Murray. The introductory pages are also motivational and inspiring. A great collection but those two above-mentioned authors are the ones I felt closest to. Their perspective and experience were relatable.

[Bettina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful essays by women writers (suitable for co-ed reading, of course). My favorite essay, "Still Just Writing," is by one of my favorite authors, Anne Tyler, who aptly describes the challenges of fitting in writing time while raising kids. Tyler was picking up one of her daughters from school one day when someone asked her if she'd gotten a job yet or if she was "still just writing." Amusingly, she describes her characters as extra kids. One gaunt, elderly male character (unnamed, but a typical Tyler mainstay) waits anxiously to be heard, moving in and out of Tyler's peripheral imagination while in real life, her daughters develop one crisis after another.

Since the famously reclusive Tyler, a Baltimore native, almost never gives interviews, the insight into her background (raised in a commune-like atmosphere 'til age 10, for instance) and process are particularly treasured. There are some other great essays in this book as well, but it's worth it for that one alone.

[Tristy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book from the feminist archives that (more or less) holds up today. The collection contains some fantastic writers. It was so wild to see Alice Walker's bio, so early in her career - she'd only published 2 books when this anthology was released! I was really moved by so many of the pieces, which give perspectives on what it is like to create and write, when living the life of a woman. I was so moved by Muriel Rukeyser's piece, in which she describes a very different New York City than we are used to - one with horse drawn carriages and slaughterhouses - on the Upper West Side! She was born in 1913, and it was very powerful for me to realize that someone who was alive in 1980, could remember Manhattan, pre-skyscrapers. The diversity of the collection is admirable and does not feel forced at all. Truly a great read.

[Helen King · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know why this took me so long to read - lots of insights and different perspectives on the question 'why I write' from a range of women writers. I particularly enjoyed Margaret Atwood's take (9 different perspectives, depending how the question is understood, Anne Tyler's practical approach of managing to write while focusing on home and child rearing (taking the time available and also how that approach enriches her writing), Josn Didion's reflections (and why I should really look up her work, which I've never read), Margaret Walker, Alice Walker (actually, they all have great things to say). Give it a go!

[Colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Published in 1980, this book has a lot of focus on the women’s movement and the challenges of women writers that seem dated when being read 34 years later. No doubt books by more contemporary writers are available. Still some of the entries were very fascinating. The last entry, by Gail Godwin, quotes a passage from Iris Murdoch’s novel The Black Prince, in which a writer says, “Every book is the wreck of a perfect idea. The years pass and one has only one life. If one has a thing at all one must do it and keep on and on and on trying to do it better.”

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

Are you a writer? Are you a woman? Get a copy!

[Anne Marshall · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good collection of information on women writers. The diaries were the best sections.

[Rae · Rating 3 out of 5]

A motivating selection of essays written by prominent authors including Anne Tyler, Alice Walker, Erica Jong, Gail Godwin, and Nancy Milford. They discuss what, how and why they write.

[Kristy Alley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book of essays by women writers. Although ostensibly an answer to the question "Why do you write?" many of the essays feel more like memoir, with a few humorous ones thrown in.

[Jan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A couple of the essays were good (Anne Tyler, Joan Didion) but others were rather tedious. Writing's work and modern life not designed for it. Check.

[Maria Marsello]

Given this book when I graduated from High School by an important teacher. I still cherish it...

[Ana Alvarez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential for any writer whose experiences as a woman inform their practice. This book illustrates how writing transforms from a hobby or pleasure into an identity, a form of living.

[Jamie Smet]

*to read: essays by Anne Tyler and Gail Godwin

[Risa · Rating 2 out of 5]

"The Writer on Her Work, Volume I by Anne Tyler (1992)"