Celebrated author Ellen Gilchrist played many roles—writer and speaker, wife and lover, mother and grandmother. But she had never tackled the role of teacher.
Offered the opportunity to teach creative writing at the University of Arkansas, she accepted the challenge and ventured into unknown territory. In the process of teaching more than two hundred students since her first class in 2000, she found inspiration in their lives and ambitions and in the challenge of conveying to them the lessons she had learned from living and writing.
The Writing Life brings together fifty essays and vignettes centered on the transforming magic of literature and the teaching and writing of it. A portion of the collection discusses the delicate balance between an artistic life and family commitments, especially the daily pressures and frequent compromises faced by a young mother. Gilchrist next focuses on the process of writing itself with essays ranging from “How I Wrote a Book of Short Stories in Three Months” to “Why Is Rewriting So Hard?”
Several essays discuss her appreciation of other writers, from Shakespeare to Larry McMurtry, and the lessons she learned from them. Eudora Welty made an indelible impact on Gilchrist’s work. When Gilchrist takes on the task of teaching, her essays reveal an enriched understanding of the role writing plays in any life devoted to the craft. Humorous and insightful, she assesses her own abilities as an instructor and confronts the challenge of inspiring students to attain the discipline and courage to pursue the sullen art. Some of these pieces have been previously published in magazines, but most are unpublished, and all appear here in book form for the first time.
It is, simply, a beautiful book. Beautiful in its lucid, limpid eloquence; in the remarkable wisdom about human nature it displays; and in its delicious cocktail of sarcastic humor, disarming candor, and face-slapping intelligence. . . . This gathering of her thoughts speaks to anyone for whom the written word is one of life’s primary joys.
In this collection of wry and poised autobiographical essays, most previously unpublished, National Book Award winner Gilchrist (Victory Over Japan, etc.) is disarmingly direct. . . . Gilchrist’s droll, optimistic and seasoned voice is irresistible. A final series of pithy essays focuses on her adaptation to academia late in life; she enthralls with witty, tender observations of her writing students’ progress. Gilchrist’s love of life, her tireless work ethic and her self-assured sense of fun and folly shine in this vital and inspiring collection.
Ellen Gilchrist (1935-2024) was author of several collections of short stories and novellas including The Cabal and Other Stories, Flights of Angels, The Age of Miracles, The Courts of Love, In the Land of Dreamy Dreams, Victory Over Japan (winner of the National Book Award), Drunk With Love, and I Cannot Get You Close Enough. She also wrote several novels, including The Anna Papers, Net of Jewels, Starcarbon, and Sarah Conley.
