Books To Read To Become a Better Writer

In one of my recent interviews, the hiring manager I interviewed with asked me how I work on improving my writing. I was stumped since I have never really given much thought to this. I feel like in writing you either have it or you don't. And I decided years ago that I don't but I can do an okay job in relaying a story. My boss at Primary Children's was an amazing writer and could elicit strong emotions in a simple letter. I would love to be able to come even close to whipping out masterpieces like her.

This hiring manager got me thinking about taking time to to find ways to improve my writing. And since most of the jobs I'm applying for here in the Silicon Valley are writing intensive, I turned to one of the college textbooks I've been lugging around. The book is called The Art and Craft of Feature Writing by William Blundell. I found it way more fascinating than I ever did during school and the author illustrated well the need to for writers to constantly improve. He shared that he started as an okay writer but through time has found his own style which has made him much better. He gave me hope to be able to grow my own skills, and now has never been a better time to do so.


In the back of the book, he mentioned several books and authors to read to learn from. I made a list of these and decided I would share for those of you out there who might also be interested. I've been able to find most of them at the local libraries. I'll keep you posted on my progress :) Enjoy!




Books To Read

• The Art and Craft of Feature Writing - William E. Blundell (Plume/Penguin)
• Understanding and Using English - Newman and Genevieve Birk (The Odyssey Press, New York)
• Understanding and Using English Grammar (4th Edition) by Betty Schrampfer Azar and Stacy A. Hagen (Paperback - Feb 23, 2009)
• The Elements of Style - Williams Strunk and E.B. White (Macmillan, New York)
• On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Non-Fiction, 2nd Edition - William Zinsser (Harper & Row, New York)
• Chapters - Simplicity, Clutter, Style and Words
• Technique in Fiction 2nd Edition - Robie Macauley and George Lanning (St. Martin’s Press, New York)
• Art of Fiction; Notes on Craft for Young Writers - John Gardner (Alfred A Knopf, New York)
• Chapter - Common Errors

Authors to Read (and learn from)

• Joan Didion
• Gay Talese
• Truman Capote - In Cold Blood
• Tom Wolfe
• John O’Hara - his short stories, not most of his novels (except for Appointment in Samarra)
• Margaret Craven - I Heard the Owl Call My Name
• Graham Greene