Read more
In this book, various writers from different backgrounds share beautiful, creatively-written essays about how forms of physical activity (e.g., hiking, backpacking, road running, building a fire, practicing yoga, trail running, walking, boogie boarding, cycling, snowshoeing, swimming, mountain biking, and doing triathlons) as well as their interactions with the natural world have impacted their specific writing practices, teaching approaches, and who they are as people. In their lively pieces they explore the myriad ways in which physical activities in particular environmental contexts have directly and radically impacted their composing processes as well as their lives as writers. Drawing from techniques in creative nonfiction as well as rhetoric and writing studies, each author draws the reader into her/his adventures and experiences in illuminating ways, furthering the argument that physical activities are not disconnected from our writing. Rather, they are inextricably linked to our writing practices. And oftentimes we are in fact composing in the very act of engaging in such physical activities.
List of contents
Laura Gray-Rosendale: Introduction - Annette McGivney: Hiking Hard - EiLeen E. Schell: Teaming Up: Running and Writing in Collaboration - Karen Auvinen: Building the Fire: How Routine and Practice Create a Spark - Jill Weiss Ippolito: The Bermuda Standard: Through the Practice of Both Yoga and Writing I Rise Up and Heal from Trauma - Laura Gray-Rosendale: Chasing Creativity: Trail Running to Write - Elizabeth Geoghegan: Uncharted: Walking and Writing Off the Map - Suzanne Roberts: Catching the Next Wave: Writing and Boogie Boarding - Shawna Kenney: Self-Propelled: How Biking Steered My Writing Life - Elisabeth Fairfield Stokes: Snowshoeing on a Lake on a Quiet Evening - Lynn Z. Bloom: Swimming in the Existential Lane - Kyle Boggs: Mountain Biking, Writing, and Reckoning - Optimism one: Writing with Iron - About the Contributors - Index.
About the author
Laura Gray-Rosendale, President¿s Distinguished Teaching Fellow and Professor of English at Northern Arizona University, is the author of numerous books that bring together creative nonfiction, writing studies, and rhetoric. Her books College Girl: A Memoir and Getting Personal: Teaching Personal Writing in the Digital Age have both received IPPY Awards.
Summary
In this book, various writers from different backgrounds explore the myriad ways in which physical activities in particular environmental contexts have directly and radically impacted their composing processes as well as their lives as writers.
Report
"Writers' Stories in Motion tells us that we're not alone, that we laugh, cry, manage, do better than manage when the physical joins the intellectual and the creative wonder of writing. Every essay in this book is a joy, even in descriptions of tragedy and outrage. We are reminded yet again, through truly lovely writing, that the physical, mental, and creative are symbiotic."-Victor Villanueva, Regents Professor and Edward R. Meyer Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts at Washington State University
