John Warner - The Writer’s Practice: Building Confidence in Your Nonfiction Writing

Warner generously offers useful hints for improving nonfiction writing.... Warners style reads like informal, intelligent conversation founded on a genuine desire to share what he knows, and his helpful book will serve as a trusty companion to writers on their own or in class.

Publishers Weekly

In this uber-handy guide, veteran rhetorician Warner invites readers to sharpen their written communication skills.... The guide is well-organized and extremely readable, infused with the perfect amount of Warners personality and experiences. Unique and thorough, Warners handbook could turn any determined reader into a regular Malcolm Gladwell.

Booklist

In The Writers Practice, John Warner invites us on a quest. Quite literallythe book is no passive read, but instead an interactive journey. Warner lays out a map of writing challenges and puzzles (he calls them experiences), provides tools for the odyssey, and keeps up a friendly, encouraging banter throughout. The experiences stretch ones writing practice in compelling ways, covering a wide variety of genres and skills. Completed collectively or selectively, the practices would assuredly benefit students, professionals, or anyone who desires to improve their writing.

Sarah Rose Cavanagh, Assumption College, author of The Spark of Learning: Energizing the College Classroom with the Science of Emotion

Think you cant write? John Warner disagrees. In his carefully plotted guide to better writing, Warner argues that with focused practice, you CAN improve. So can your students. The Writers Practice offers an easy-to-follow series of lessons that, while prompting you to write, build essential writing muscles. An ideal book for anyone new to teaching writing or for aspiring writers keen to improve their craft.

Carol Jago, long-time high school English teacher, past president of the National Council of Teachers of English, and associate director of the California Reading and Literature Project, UCLA

A fast and fun guide to what matters in writing (spoiler: attention to audience and purpose), covering everything from academic papers and business reports to travel guides, memoirs, jokes, and even obituaries. Warner writes for readers, and theyll love him for itplus theyll learn to do the same.

Daniel F. Chambliss, Eugene M. Tobin Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Hamilton College, and coauthor of How College Works

With its focus on doing rather than explaining, The Writers Practice invites collaboration. Whatever route readers takes through the book (and Warner outlines several possibilities), they will encounter new and challenging authorial tasks, helpfully contextualized. Working through the various sections, writers will practice the attitudes, skills, habit of mind, and knowledge that Warner positions as critical to effective writing. The end product will be a sort of coauthored text, reflecting Warners goals and methods, and the readers effort and growth. Adaptable for classroom use but just as valuable for solo practitioners, The Writers Practice is an indispensable guide for writers and instructors alike.

Susan Schorn, Writing Program Coordinator, School of Undergraduate Studies, University of TexasAustin

John Warners approach to nonfiction merges his experience as a creative writer and his expertise as a teacher of college composition. Rather than see creative and academic writing as opposed, Warner encourages the aspiring nonfiction writer to adopt a dual perspective: Analytical writing can be like a dialogue. A memory can be held up to the test of research. Too many writing tasks ask the student to regard their writing at a great distance, as if poking something vaguely distasteful or even dangerous. Warners book encourages students to bring non-fiction writing closer to them, to embrace its complexity, its challenge, and its importance to their own lives.

Catherine Prendergast, professor, dept. of English, University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign

Practice? Writers practice? Whos a writer?? You?? Me??? Claiming that everyone is a writer, experienced writer and writing teacher John Warner shares his insights about writing. Its not magic, but it takes practicenot a list of rulesto write well. He guides novices and even more seasoned writers to think about what they are trying to accomplish, and then how to make it happen. Its not the usual school-writing, thank goodness, so students and those guiding them will find it refreshing and even, possibly, enlightening. In his Im-in-love-with-writing approach, Warner cant be stopped from sharing every trick hes stumbled upon. We all write. We can all write better. Its hard, and fun, and will change the way you look at communicating, and possibly the way you think about everything.

Susan D. Blum, professor of anthropology, The University of Notre Dame

In The Writers Practice, writer and writing teacher John Warner confesses: Theres no one right way to write. Throughout this how-to volume on nonfiction writing, Warner remains grounded in this paradox by avoiding templates while guiding writers as well as would-be writers and teachers through the questions and problems that all writers navigate in the pursuit of writing well. This book is a gift and everyone learning to write (thus, everyone), or seeking ways to teach writing better, must add this work to their essential bookshelf.

P.L. Thomas, professor of education, Furman University, and author of Trumplandia: Unmasking Post-Truth America and Teaching Writing as Journey, Not Destination: Essays Exploring What Teaching Writing Means

While most writing textbooks devote a chapter to the rhetorical situation, John Warners The Writers Practice is the rare book whose activities center on the idea that good writing responds to the demands of its situation. Presenting a variety of authentic writing tasks, Warners book shows students how to adapt their writing to address different audiences, even if that audience is oneself.

Chris Warnick, College of Charleston

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THE WRITERS PRACTICE

John Warner has more than twenty years experience teaching college-level writing, working with a range of students on developmental writing through graduate-level studies. He has taught many different types of writing, from composition, fiction, and narrative nonfiction to technical and humor writing. A contributing writer at Inside Higher Ed, he has become a national voice on writing pedagogy and writes a weekly column on books and reading for the Chicago Tribune. He is the author of five books. An editor-at-large at McSweeneys, he has worked with writers who have gone on to publish in outlets including the New York Times, The New Yorker, and the Guardian.

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Copyright 2019 by John Warner

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Control Number: 2018032895 (print)