Dear Writer, Maggie Smith
Dear Writer, Maggie Smith
8 Rating(s)
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Dear Writer
Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life

Author: Maggie Smith

Narrator: Maggie Smith

Unabridged: 6 hr 46 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/01/2025

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included

Synopsis

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER

New York Times bestselling author and poet Maggie Smith distills creativity and the craft of writing with a practical guide perfect for fans of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic and Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird.

Drawing from her twenty years of teaching experience and her bestselling Substack newsletter, For Dear Life, Maggie Smith breaks down creativity into ten essential elements: attention, wonder, vision, play, surprise, vulnerability, restlessness, tenacity, connection, and hope. Each element is explored through short, inspiring, and craft-focused essays, followed by generative writing prompts. Dear Writer provides tools that artists of all experience levels can apply to their own creative practices and carry with them into all genres and all areas of life.

About Maggie Smith

Maggie Smith is the award-winning New York Times bestselling author of nine books of poetry and prose, including A Suit or a Suitcase, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Good Bones, Goldenrod, Keep Moving, and My Thoughts Have Wings.  She has been widely published, appearing in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Nation, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Best American Poetry, and more. She is the host of The Slowdown. You can find her on social media @MaggieSmithPoet.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Zibby on March 09, 2025

This book provides valuable advice for writers on safeguarding their creative essence. The author discusses the fragility of ideas, the importance of remaining open and receptive to creativity, and the power of silencing one's inner critic. Ultimately, she emphasizes that we are all, at our core, po......more

Goodreads review by Krys on November 11, 2024

Maggie Smith's "Dear Writer" is a gem, but with a catch. The absolute best parts are the suggested readings and writing exercises at the end of each chapter. As a former creative writing teacher, I know how hard it can be to find perfect example texts, but Smith nails it. The exercises aren't your t......more

Goodreads review by Anju on January 24, 2025

A incredibly kind book that gently nurtures creativity. I think this book came to me at the perfect time, when I was stuck in a creative slump and riddled with self-doubt. Maggie Smith encourages curiosity, vulnerability and offers insights into different styles of writing. The book felt like an asy......more

Goodreads review by Kristen on April 19, 2025

My writing life has been basically non existent the last 6 months so I needed this book! It was inspirational but also incredibly helpful. While I don’t do the type of writing that Smith does (though, as she argues, genre is a trap!), I learned SO much from this book. I loved the chapter on feedback......more

Goodreads review by Mari on April 13, 2025

Right up there with Stephen King’s ON WRITING and Anne Lamott’s BIRD BY BIRD, Maggie Smith’s DEAR WRITER is a beautiful mentorship unfolding and deepening with every page. I devoured it! I actually reread almost the whole book because I didn’t have a pen to take notes one day, and I just had to make......more

Quotes

"Poet Maggie Smith’s newest audiobook expands her purview to offer all kinds of artists helpful advice about what she sees as the 10 essential elements of creativity: attention, wonder, vision, play, surprise, vulnerability, restlessness, tenacity, connection, and hope. Her light, sweet-sounding voice often assumes a poet’s studied rhythmic cadence as she narrates with beautifully clear enunciation. The result is a listenable experience that, perhaps inadvertently, highlights her professional background. Yet the pace feels right for a book chock full of ideas. As befits the author of the poem “Good Bones,” which went viral in 2016, her advice is both kind and tough-minded. What’s most important, she emphasizes, is that “we have to love making things more than we love having made them.”'

"Poet Maggie Smith’s newest audiobook expands her purview to offer all kinds of artists helpful advice about what she sees as the 10 essential elements of creativity: attention, wonder, vision, play, surprise, vulnerability, restlessness, tenacity, connection, and hope. Her light, sweet-sounding voice often assumes a poet’s studied rhythmic cadence as she narrates with beautifully clear enunciation. The result is a listenable experience that, perhaps inadvertently, highlights her professional background. Yet the pace feels right for a book chock full of ideas. As befits the author of the poem “Good Bones,” which went viral in 2016, her advice is both kind and tough-minded. What’s most important, she emphasizes, is that “we have to love making things more than we love having made them.”'

"Poet Maggie Smith’s newest audiobook expands her purview to offer all kinds of artists helpful advice about what she sees as the 10 essential elements of creativity: attention, wonder, vision, play, surprise, vulnerability, restlessness, tenacity, connection, and hope. Her light, sweet-sounding voice often assumes a poet’s studied rhythmic cadence as she narrates with beautifully clear enunciation. The result is a listenable experience that, perhaps inadvertently, highlights her professional background. Yet the pace feels right for a book chock full of ideas. As befits the author of the poem “Good Bones,” which went viral in 2016, her advice is both kind and tough-minded. What’s most important, she emphasizes, is that “we have to love making things more than we love having made them.”'

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