The craft of writing offers countless potential problems: The story is too long; the story’s too short; revising presents a huge hurdle; writer’s block is rearing its ugly head.
In HELP! FOR WRITERS, Roy Peter Clark presents an “owner’s manual” for writers, outlining the seven steps of the writing process, and addressing the 21 most urgent problems that writers face. In his trademark engaging and entertaining style, Clark offers ten short solutions to each problem. Out of ideas? Read posters, billboards, and graffiti. Can’t bear to edit yourself? Watch the deleted scenes feature of a DVD, and ask yourself why those scenes were left on the cutting-room floor. HELP! FOR WRITERS offers 210 strategies to guide writers to success.

America’s most influential writing teacher offers an engaging and practical guide to effective short-form writing.
In HOW TO WRITE SHORT, Roy Peter Clark turns his attention to the art of painting a thousand pictures with just a few words. Short forms of writing have always existed-from ship logs and telegrams to prayers and haikus. But in this ever-changing Internet age, short-form writing has become an essential skill. Clark covers how to write effective and powerful titles, headlines, essays, sales pitches, Tweets, letters, and even self-descriptions for online dating services. With examples from the long tradition of short-form writing in Western culture, HOW TO WRITE SHORT guides writers to crafting brilliant prose, even in 140 characters.

America’s favorite writing coach returns with a guide to writing clearly and honestly in a world full of lies, propaganda, and misinformation.

The darker and more dystopian the future appears, the more influential public writers become. But with so much content vying for our attention, and so much misinformation and propaganda polluting public discourse, how can writers break through the noise to inform an increasingly busy, stressed, and overwhelmed audience?
 
In Tell It Like It Is, bestselling author, writing coach, and teacher Roy Peter Clark offers a succinct and practical guide to writing with clarity, honesty, and conviction. By analyzing stellar writing samples from a diverse collection of public writers, Clark highlights and explains the tools journalists, scientists, economists, fact-checkers, even storytellers use to engage, inform, and hook readers, and how best to deploy them in a variety of contexts. In doing so, he provides answers to some of the most pressing questions facing writers today:
 
How do I make hard facts—about pandemics, wars, natural disasters, social justice—easy reading?
How do I get readers to pay attention to what they need to know?
How do I help contribute to a culture of writing that combats misinformation and propaganda?
How do I instill hope into the hearts and minds of readers?
 
With Clark’s trademark wit, insight, and compassion, Tell It Like It Is offers a uniquely practical and engaging guide to public writing in unprecedented times—and an urgently needed remedy for a dangerously confused world.

early in the history of english, glamour ad grammar were the same word, linked to enchantment and magical spells. Now grammar brings to mind language bullies and bored-out-of-their-skulls students. Roy Peter Clark, one of America’s most influential writing teachers, wants to change that by putting the glamour back into grammar.
Whether you are composing a novel, a memo, an e-mail, or a blog post, you can immediately apply any of the lessons Clark lays out in fifty short chapters. Covering everything from the parts of speech to why effective writers prefer concrete nouns and active verbs, Clark teaches you how to use periods, commas, and semicolons to their fullest advantage; befriend the lively verb to be; avoid “hyper-grammar”; properly place those tricky modifiers; and harness other secrets of powerful prose. Above all, he teaches you how to master grammar to perfect your use of English, to hone meaning, and to charm through your writing.
In a world where we communicate more and more through emails and text messages, how you use language matters-even in 140 characters. The Glamour of Grammar prepares you top captivate with every word.