Toxic Feedback: Helping Writers Survive and Thrive

Contents

Contents Introduction: Every Writer Has a Story  V Rethinking Feedback What is Feedback?  EQ  Sarah Stewart Taylor: “Wow! This could be my job.”  V Getting Feedback Is It You . . . or Is It Them?  Processing Feedback  Samina Ali: “I would have sold my soul.”  Twenty-Two Years  Editing Your Editor  Ernest Hebert: “I wanted writing to be easy for me and it wasn’t.”  Feedback Hotlines  “Danger, Danger, Will Robinson!”  Jennifer Crusie: “A story is a collaboration between a writer  and a reader.” The Club  Waiting for Feedback  Archer Mayor: “Emotion is a blinding force.”  The Value of Toxic Feedback  V Giving Feedback Preventing Mental Meltdowns  The Power of Positive Feedback  Grace Paley: “My nature wasn’t ambitious enough to go ahead  on my own.” A Right Way and a Wrong Way  Can You Please Be More Specific!  Khaled Hosseini: “Even if the book is good, no one is going to  want to publish it.” The Moment of Truth  Common Human Decency  Don (D. B.) Johnson: “My best advice is to marry well.”  Editorial Biases  Get That Look Off Your Face  Ted Kooser: “We all serve communities.”  Small Miracles  V In the Company of Writers Hey, Let’s Put On a Workshop!  How to Have a Good Group Discussion  Gregory Maguire: “I don’t revise in an architectural way.”  Who’s in Charge?  The Top Ten Rules of a Successful Writing Group  Julia Alvarez: “My dream of becoming a writer was  a fool’s dream.” Meet the World’s Worst Workshop  Publishing   Jodi Picoult: “I call our relationship my second marriage.”  Can Creative Writing Be Taught?  Crystal Wilkinson: “Processing feedback has to be a meditation.”  In Appreciation of Bad Writing  Epilogue: Feedback and the Real World  Acknowledgments  About the Author  viii Contents Toxic Feedback ...