"On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction" by William Zinsser (1976)

Zinsser's "On Writing Well" is the midpoint between Lamotts "Bird by Bird" and Wood's "How Fiction Works": more personal than Wood and more craft-centerd than Lamott. The primary difference between his "personal" and Lamott's is that Zinsser tends to stick to stories from his life that center around writing: being a guest speaker, interacting with his students, being a featured pannelist, whereas Lamott tends to center her experiences and rotate the writing tips around that (not unlike Chee in "How to Write an Autobiographical Novel). Zinsser is explicit about what he thinks is good writing versus "hack" writing, being as bold as to say "hack" himself.

Zinsser is hyper-aware of the prominence of non-fiction writing and offers valuable information for writers and non-writers alike. His book is broken into four parts: principles, methods, forms, and attitudes. However, for most people (i.e., anyone not pursuing journalism) the principles and methods sections are where a bulk of the information come from. A lot of the actual "tips" stop after this point, where he begins to get specific about forms and clichés to be mindful of once the book hits the "forms" section. At that point, you can really skim to any area you're interested in and leave the rest untouched.

Zinsser has a few recurring tips: be yourself, avoid clichés, all elements must be cohesive (unity), and, perhaps most important, writing won't be any fun to read if you don't have fun writing it (enjoyment). That being said, Zinsser's first couple sections open the door for anyone to learn how to better their writing abilities and become aware of what their pitfalls may be.

"My Time Among the Whites: Notes from an Unfinished Education" by Jennine Capó Crucet (2019)

Capó Crucet's essay collection is a fascinating study of social politics during the 2016 Trump presidency. Though she travels back and forth through time periods in her life, they always end up at the same spot: the racial tensions and socio-political climate caused by the Trump administration. The core of the collection is Capó Crucet's analysis of race from the perspective of someone who has been placed on every level of the spectrum: treated as the racial majority, passing for another racial majority, and being a part of a racial minority. Capó Crucet's experiences of each of these shapes her analysis of the dangers that arise with a noted xenophobic racist in office.

Where the magic really arises in the collection is how Capó Crucet is able to find the metaphors for these complex, unpleasant issues within her own personal experiences. From the othering found as a first-gen student at an Ivy League institution to misconceptions (or inexperience) about white funerals and weddings, the center of each piece remains Capó Crucet as all the other themes seem to fall into place around her.

Looking back on this collection, it seems like a time capsule for an era no one (should) want to return to but continues lurking around the corner.

"Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris (2000)

Sedaris' essay collection is one filled with biting, dry humor. Unafraid to poke fun at himself and others, Sedaris shows an incredible ability to find the humor in death, addiction, and existential crises. His ability to characterize the people in his life through specific details helps translate the reality of them while also showing how interests, habits, and quirks can lend to the humor of everyday life.

The first part of the collection focuses primarily on his life growing up, coming of age, and discovering who he may want to be. The second part of the collection, primarily explores his new life in France with his partner, giving examples of Americanness outside of the American context. Through his own difficulties in learning the language, viewing Americans on vacation in Paris, and the juxtaposition between his view of events as a guy raised in the South and his partners' views as a child of American diplomats, Sedaris is able to paint what it means to carry one's culture and upbringing into a new "world."

Not enough good things can be said about this book and the insights it offers through the most unorthodox methods.

"How to Write an Autobiographical Novel" by Alexander Chee (2018)

SPOILERS AHEAD

Chee's essay collection, though framed as a craft book, is most alive when he isn't giving writing advice at all. In fact, his two essays dedicated to the writing process (one of which being the namesake of the collection) bring the momentum he builds in the other pieces to a halt.

From his discussions about being mixed race from an immigrant family (both living in America and Korea), his advocacy involvement in the AIDS/HIV crisis, being in NYC during 9/11, to his healing journey explored through writing and therapy, Chee is excellent at showcasing his autobiographical prowess. Chee is unflinching looking inward as he does not skew occurrences to paint him in a more flattering light, using historical parallels to help make sense of his internal (and at times external) crises. He takes horrific truths and makes them digestible, but never comfortable. The primary theme of the entire collection is "complexity." According to Chee no one is a clear hero or villain, privileged or disadvantaged, or even fully aware of who they are and what they are doing with their lives (or how that affects their place in the world). We exist in these essays alongside Chee, drifting in that nebulous grayness.

The layout of the collection is predominantly chronological for the first half, but as the essays progress the timelines begin slipping into one another, not unlike how we tend to remember things ourselves. If anything, this collection is pieced together through patterns: historical, personal, traumatic, and observed.

"How Fiction Works" by James Wood (2008)

James Wood's "How Fiction Works" is simultaneously a wonderful and horrible starting guide for what to pay attention to as you embark in fiction writing. His use of examples can be inaccessible to those who are not familiar with the authors, but his use of example quotes is helpful in identifying some of his more challenging concepts.

This book works to serve as a step-by-step guide of considerations for fiction writers and readers, giving the reader a better vocabulary to discuss primarily realism or "lifeness" in fiction. He looks at characters, language, narration, narrative styles, detail, dialogue, and convention along with the history of literature that led us to what we recognize as a contemporary novel. This book focuses less on making a clear argument, instead dissecting the contradicting approaches to fiction by notable authors. If there is any concise argument to be found here, it's that Wood does not believe in a right or wrong way to approach fiction, just good and bad writing (all of which can only be delineated through context).

Perhaps what stood out most to me is the recurring theme Wood brings up: fiction makes us better at noticing life and articulating our experiences. He gives countless examples of authors describing the mundane, the extravagant, the pure, the horrific, all of which involve close attention to human experiences in the "real world." For Wood, literature is not only a tool for escape, but a way to call attention to what we tend to overlook in our daily lives.

"A Small Place" by Jamaica Kincaid (1988)

Kincaid's "A Small Place" is a masterclass in blending history, culture, place, neocolonial critique, and autobiographical essay. De-romanticizing and re-centering the history of a place known, practically solely, for its tourism globally is no small feat, but Kincaid makes it look easy. While the book was written in 2008, there are details that show not only the lasting neglect of public spaces and care (the library, is the most notable example) over decades of administration after becoming a sovereign nation from the British. Her prose blends the reality of corruption, the impact of the British, the intergenerational trauma of slavery, personal experience, and shows how the current understanding of Antigua and its residents is shallow, only truly benefitting the colonial powers that brought Antigua to this place.

The last chapter/essay is perhaps the most dramatic. Kincaid zooms in on the "unreal beauty" of Antigua and illuminates the horrors that lurk in the shadows of that beauty. She continues by showing how each element of Antiguan life is representative of a colonial past. Speaking English, the newness of all surroundings that are free from "revolutions of any kind," Kincaid is showing the reader that a colonized nation, even if not currently under foreign rule, exists at the mercy of a culture, language, and belief system that was never representative of the native population.

When examining multicultural literature, particularly from non-Western authors, the perspective and lens offered by Kincaid is invaluable. Her analysis transcends economy, history, or culture as she uses the final moments of this powerful book to emphasize the scars that cannot be washed away from generation to generation.

"Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza" by Gloria Anzaldúa (1987)

Anzaldúa's "Borderlands/La Frontera" is informational, harrowing, dramatic, and sourlful. Remarkably, she is able to weave together essays and poems that inform the reader about her culture and how the modern understanding "Chicano" came to be. This book flows between Mexican, American, and Indigenous history into Anzaldúa's life, giving the writer a vivid picture of the foundation of her identity. To Anzaldúa, she is everything: an insider and outsider, indigenous and foreign, soft and strong.

This book has a lot of similarities to other female writers of color from this era: Maxine Hong Kingston's "The Woman Warrior" and Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye" are the most recognizable. All three discuss culture, violence, gender and its expectations, whiteness, heritage, and Capitalism. For anyone who has read similar novels or collections, Anzaldúa's poetic, blunt yet purple language allows her to remain striking and individual. What emotions and images she doesn't have room to capture in her prose, she covers in the second half of the book with her poetry and lyrics, reminding the reader that her experiences are both individual and collective, reinforcing the theme of "everythingness" throughout the piece.

"The Woman Warrior" by Maxine Hong Kingston (1976)

SPOILERS AHEAD

Kingston's collection of essays is a beautiful blend of culture, folklore, and memory in this bildungsroman. Difficult enough, Kingston excels at becoming an omniscient third-person narrator for stories her family does not want to tell, as most clearly evidenced in the essay, "At the Western Palace." Paired with her use of first-person in essays like "No Name Woman" and "White Tigers," the reader has to remind themselves that the Orchid sisters are not characters from Kingston's imagination, but her mother and aunt. The skill with which she blends the essays together feels as though they are a larger story, told in succinct parts that tell us what we need to know about Kingston, her family, her ancestors, and their culture. "White Tigers" is the most excellent with blending culture and folklore with personal story as Kingston embodies Mulan as a form of establishing her identity.

While the previously mentioned essays may best demonstrate Kingston's ability to shift between real and imaginary without leaving any seams, the final essay, "A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe" is the one that tells the reader the most. Kingston hints at her individualism throughout the collection, but she always remains in relation to something else: folklore, her family, China. In the final essay, that is stripped and we can see how being a child of immigrant parents affects her as an individual. She has been told to be more demure by her aunt, has had her tongue cut by her mother in an effort to expand her linguistic capabilities, she has remained "boring" and grateful that she, a self-perceived family failure, was not still in China for fear of being turned into a daughter-in-law or slave. This tension is what leads her to torment another girl at her school, torturing her in a basement for what feels like an eternity to Kingston, the girl, and the reader. Having this scene precede her blow-out argument with her mother, the reader is witnessing how feeling like someone who cannot belong, either with her ancestral culture or her transplanted one, can result in anger, desperation, and outsiderdom. The final essay is the ending of Kingston's coming-of-age arc. The history of her family and the foreignness she experiences stop pushing her into a box she does not fit within and she becomes, as she imagined in "White Tigers," a warrior in control of her own destiny.

"Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamott (1994)

Lamott’s book walks the line between a fiction craft book and memoir. The book comprises four main sections, “Writing,” “The Writing Frame of Mind,” “Help Along the Way,” and “Publication—and Other Reasons to Write.” Though the book is organized by writing tips, the heart of the book is in Lamott’s experience as a writer, friend, daughter, and mother. The primary benefit of this book is being able to see the applications of Lamott’s writing advice through her experiences she shares. She finds inspiration for her work in tragedy, humor, and the relationships she builds with other creatives primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York.

Lamott advocates for the creepier parts of the writing process, like eavesdropping and adding non-favorable details about people to avoid libel, while giving credit where it is due, citing the people in her life that helped her be a better writer. Writing is an isolating venture, one that is frequently plagued by negative feelings of self-doubt and isolation. Lamott comforts the reader, letting them know the horrible parts of writing are real and your feelings are valid. Though the tips Lamott gives may not make the entire process of writing easier, it makes being a writer feel easier, more communal, and authentic. After reading this book, I have new techniques I look forward to trying for my weak points—like ways to try turning a string of scenes into a cohesive plot and ways to combat writer’s block—and the reassurance that the difficulties I may feel as a writer are not mine alone.