Thanks for commenting, Rachael. I learned a lot from Natalie Goldberg, then when Anne Lamott came along I was ready for “Bird by Bird”. What gives both of them credence is their ability to make us feel good about our decision to become writers while gently telling us it’s okay to fail at it. Because we will. We’ll fail more often than we’ll succeed, but it’s all part of the plan. It’s how it has to work when creativity enters into it.

It’s not like apprenticing to become an electrician, say, where learning is by the book and the goal is to pass the test. We become writers because we believe we have something unique to add. It’s that uniqueness that sometimes gets in our way. The books I’ve chosen here tell us how to hang on to who we are while we’re learning the necessary basics. They present it beautifully, I think.