Peter Turchi

Books about writing fall into two camps. There are the instructional ones, with writing prompts and exercises, and there are the inspirational ones, that instead of telling you how to write, make the reader want to jump up and grab a pen. Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer by Peter Turchi is neither of these things, but rather a look at how writing a book is like making a map. The comparison sometimes gets lost in Turchi's giant enthusiasm for maps and the history of mapmaking and I have to admit that I was with him all the way. If you like maps a lot and write a bit, then this book is for you, and by that I mean that this book was for me. It also helps that the physical book is such a pleasing object, with heavy, creamy paper and plentiful maps of many kinds.

Given that our capacity for abstraction is great, greater than we may realize, it isn't necessary for a map user to know the first thing about projection formulas. A map maker, however, is obliged to understand exactly what he is doing.

This isn't an instruction book, but it does present a different angle with which to look at a writing project. Whether it will prove useful is unknown, but the maps were lovely, as was the author's discussions around them.… (more)

first i will say, this book is gorgeous, and full of good ideas.

but, ultimately, turchi gives us the tools to recognize the failures of his own "map." the book is full of blank spaces that he himself wasn't aware of: why are most of his literary examples white, male, and european? why does his reference to the blues form (and this is one of his only references to the writing of POC) end up in a brief footnote, while countless other writers get pages of close-reading?

for a book that otherwise seems so aware of the politics/biases of maps, this strikes me as a pretty unforgivable mistake.… (more)