There is a wonderful simplicity at the center of the jumbled confusion that seems to characterize the aesthetics of this book. It was recommended to me by a friend who took a class with Ms. Barry: she said that "What It Is" pretty much tells you all you need to know to be a writer. I agree. While it probably won't necessarily make you a great writer, it does a wonderful job in contextualizing the creative process in a universal and highly accessibly way. Since finishing it some weeks ago, the precepts and insights of the book have only grown more pertinent. Good stuff. ( )

I thought this was a place to start reading Lynda Barry but it's a little [a:SARK|72673|SARK|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-F-50x66.jpg]-y. More of an art manual I guess? The last thing you and this book's relationship needs is the library people (shout out to NYPL Jefferson Market after-work shift honeys!) wondering about when it's coming back. This is the kind of book you buy and keep around when you need to feed your collage brain. ( )

This volume takes Lynda Barry's fiction writing courses to the streets.

The first half or so contains a memoir of her early artistic development, in the vivid style of her comics and graphic novels. What always amazes me about her work is how it makes me feel that she is a "kindred spirit," even though the time, the place, the social class, the culture, all of the gauntlets that children are made to run are entirely different. She is a sensitive, creative person in an insensitive place.

The other part of the book consists of several exercises for improving your fiction writing. In particular, Barry seeks to elicit memories and details about things in your past to create descriptive prose of them. She also provides a number of different activities to help you to trigger stories and images. Although her focus is on fiction and memoir, these exercises will also be useful to the practice of the poetry workshop aphorism "Show, don't tell," and her scrapbook/sketchbook approach to the book will likely inspire a number of experiments that will not fit neatly into prose.

Highly recommended. ( )

I can remember loving to draw and write and imagine as a child. I can also remember a later time when I stopped doing those things; when there were the good drawers and writers and the rest of us just stopped trying. I can't remember what changed in between those times. What was the event that made me stop drawing and writing and making stories? Lynda Barry examines that question in her own life in What It Is. The first half of this beautiful graphic novel is a short autobiography of Barry's life as a writer/reader/artist/creator from early childhood past college. The second half of the book is advice and projects for young (or old) writers to spark their creativity. They key she says is to never let your pen stop moving. The last part of the book are more projects and ideas to use. This would be a great book to use in a creative writing class for students of any age. It makes me want to go home and begin to write. Everyone has something to express. ( )

http://www.bostonbibliophile.com/2009... ( )