The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice to Writers by Betsy Lerner. © 2000 Riverhead. ISBN 157322152X. Hardback. Non-fiction. 240 pages. $21.95 US. [ Purchase ] Source: local library
As an amateur writer who has long fancied a career in editing, this book naturally piqued my interest. In chapters that first detail different types of writers and then move to varying perspectives on the process of publishing, Lerner takes the writer by the hand and on a tour through the miry maze of publication.
Lerner begins with the starting point of any piece of writing: its author. I thoroughly enjoyed the characterizations, sometimes perhaps caricatures, of different ways the need to write manifests itself. There are different types of writers, and while we all might not fit tidily into one box, the observations are accurate. Read the rest of this entry »
