Dear Writer Audiobook By Maggie Smith cover art

Dear Writer

Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life

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Dear Writer

By: Maggie Smith
Narrated by: Maggie Smith
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Buy for $14.99

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INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER

New York Times bestselling author and poet Maggie Smith distills creativity and the craft of writing with a practical guide perfect for fans of Elizabeth Gilbert’sBig Magicand Anne Lamott’sBird by Bird.

Drawing from her twenty years of teaching experience and her bestselling Substack newsletter, For Dear Life, Maggie Smith breaks down creativity into ten essential elements: attention, wonder, vision, play, surprise, vulnerability, restlessness, tenacity, connection, and hope. Each element is explored through short, inspiring, and craft-focused essays, followed by generative writing prompts. Dear Writer provides tools that artists of all experience levels can apply to their own creative practices and carry with them into all genres and all areas of life. Creativity Personal Development Writing & Publishing Inspiring Words, Language & Grammar Biographies & Memoirs

Critic reviews

"Poet Maggie Smith’s newest audiobook expands her purview to offer all kinds of artists helpful advice about what she sees as the 10 essential elements of creativity: attention, wonder, vision, play, surprise, vulnerability, restlessness, tenacity, connection, and hope. Her light, sweet-sounding voice often assumes a poet’s studied rhythmic cadence as she narrates with beautifully clear enunciation. The result is a listenable experience that, perhaps inadvertently, highlights her professional background. Yet the pace feels right for a book chock full of ideas. As befits the author of the poem “Good Bones,” which went viral in 2016, her advice is both kind and tough-minded. What’s most important, she emphasizes, is that “we have to love making things more than we love having made them.”'
"Poet Maggie Smith’s newest audiobook expands her purview to offer all kinds of artists helpful advice about what she sees as the 10 essential elements of creativity: attention, wonder, vision, play, surprise, vulnerability, restlessness, tenacity, connection, and hope. Her light, sweet-sounding voice often assumes a poet’s studied rhythmic cadence as she narrates with beautifully clear enunciation. The result is a listenable experience that, perhaps inadvertently, highlights her professional background. Yet the pace feels right for a book chock full of ideas. As befits the author of the poem “Good Bones,” which went viral in 2016, her advice is both kind and tough-minded. What’s most important, she emphasizes, is that “we have to love making things more than we love having made them.”'
"Poet Maggie Smith’s newest audiobook expands her purview to offer all kinds of artists helpful advice about what she sees as the 10 essential elements of creativity: attention, wonder, vision, play, surprise, vulnerability, restlessness, tenacity, connection, and hope. Her light, sweet-sounding voice often assumes a poet’s studied rhythmic cadence as she narrates with beautifully clear enunciation. The result is a listenable experience that, perhaps inadvertently, highlights her professional background. Yet the pace feels right for a book chock full of ideas. As befits the author of the poem “Good Bones,” which went viral in 2016, her advice is both kind and tough-minded. What’s most important, she emphasizes, is that “we have to love making things more than we love having made them.”'
All stars
Most relevant
I learned more about the gifts of poetry here than I did in graduate school. Charming and full of useful writing advice for prose or poetry.

Dear Writer speaks directly to your creative soul.

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I like that she has exercises and prompts for getting your juices going, very personable reflections on issues that affect writers. Great listen, and I’ll definitely listen to this many times!

Very good pep-talk for writers!

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She makes me believe my art and writing matters. She gives pointers and tips and grace. She is grace.

Believable

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This is the second book I’ve listened to by Maggie Smith. While I adore her and her writing, her read-aloud intonation pattern gets extremely repetitive. After the second book, I just couldn’t keep listening to it because it began to sound like she had only one or two ways of saying a sentence. I will be buying a printed copy instead.

Repetitive Intonation

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