Telling Stories: An Anthology for Writers

By: Oates, Joyce Carol

Book Overview

Oates's chapter introductions and afterword on the writing workshop offer students encouragement, advice, and exercises for honing their skills.

As a teacher, Oates emphasizes the importance of reading widely with enthusiasm, pleasure, and purpose. Telling Stories reflects this emphasis, introducing students to a variety of models for their own writing and encouraging them to concentrate on details, revise often, make material their own, experiment with genre, and ultimately find their own voice.

Edited by a contemporary master of the storyteller's art "who defines herself primarily as a friend of the text and a friend of the writer," Telling Stories is the perfect anthology for creative writing workshops and fiction classes and a wellspring of inspiration for any beginning writer.

"The love of storytelling--to hear stories, and to tell them--is universal in our species. Those with an apparent talent for writing. . . are not of a special breed but simply mirror the common human desire. [If] you have a natural talent for writing, and a love of the imagination, you risk a lifelong deprivation if you fail to cultivate it as vigorously as you can. Write your own 'great American novel'. . . you're talented, you're intelligent, you have the driving passion, and you know as much as anyone about American life. Your story belongs uniquely to you." --Joyce Carol Oates, from the Introduction

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393971767
• ISBN13: 9780393971767
• Release Date: October 1997
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 752 Pages
• Weight: 2.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Best reading assignments ever...

If you are looking to take a writing class, save your dollars and buy this book, read your eyeballs out, and turn yourself loose on the personal style you are going to be so amazingly aware of... A ton of great reccommendations, and as always she writes with an ease and flow that is bewildering...

A wide and incisive collection

I've used this text for my Writing Fiction 281 class, and it's fantastic! I especially like the "flash fiction" section in the beginning. If you're looking for a reader that includes cannonized authors as well as fresh young voices, this is a solid choice.

This is an excellent collection of stories but...

don't buy it if you're looking for guidance on writing-there is very little about craft here but there are some excellent examples of different types narratives and they're grouped in an interesting way. One section, for example, has stories that retell fairy tales, bible stories etc. using modern story lines. Other sections cover such genres as dramatic monologues, miniature narratives and memoir. Useful if your looking for positive examples, but be prepared to draw your own conclusions.

An excellent anthology for creative writers and readers.

Joyce Carol Oates combines the best of classic literature by Kafka and Faulkner with contemporary works by Garcia Marquez and King. Each story and poem exemplifies a writing technique or strategy. An example being the two versions of James Joyce's short story "Sister;" the first his original draft and the second a revision. "Telling Stories" is a wonderful anthology for anyone wishing to broaden their knowledge of literature from Homer to today.