A Braided Heart
Essays on Writing and Form
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- $24.99
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- $24.99
Publisher Description
A Braided Heart provides a friendly, personal, and smart guide to the writing life. It also offers clear and original instruction on craft elements at the forefront of today’s emerging forms in creative nonfiction: from the short-short, to the braided form, to the hermit crab essay. An acknowledged expert in these forms, Brenda Miller gives writers practical advice on how to sustain and invigorate their writing practice, while also encouraging readers to explore their own writing lives.
“Brenda Miller writes so beautifully in these lyrical and ‘braided’ essays—personal meditations that take us deep into the miracle of writing itself. Her eye is always alert, her ear wonderfully tuned to the nuances of perception. The art of the essay is alive and well in her hands.”
—Jay Parini, author of Borges and Me
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"In the lyric essay, it all shows up. The good and the bad," writes Miller (Tell It Slant) in this eclectic amalgam of memoir and writing guide. Miller traces her influences (William Styron's novel Sophie's Choice, her friend Nancy Canyon's art) and her development as a writer, emphasizing the importance of both mastering form and of letting go. "A Case Against Courage in Creative Nonfiction" explores the "hermit crab essay," in which essays take on an existing form, such as a to-do list or a field guide. "First Words," meanwhile, finds Miller trying to remember the first thing she ever wrote. Miller soars when she captures such personal, vivid details as lipstick-lacquered mouths or the "film" of coffee dregs, though she's not immune to overwriting ("the aesthetic power of instinct coupled with improvisation, of training hitched to transience," for example). The writing advice is solid and practical, if at times puzzling, as with her discussion of metaphors that makes a case both for and against them. Aspiring writers will find some sound advice, but there isn't much to distinguish this in a crowded field.
