A prolific and award-winning writer, Lee Martin has put pen to paper to offer his wisdom, honed during thirty years of teaching the oh-so-elusive art of writing. Telling Stories is intended for anyone interested in thinking more about the elements of storytelling in short stories, novels, and memoirs. Martin clearly delineates helpful and practical techniques for demystifying the writing process and provides tools for perfecting the art of the scene, characterization, detail, point of view, language, and revision-in short, the art of writing. His discussion of the craft in his own life draws from experiences, memories, and stories to provide a more personal perspective on the elements of writing.

Martin provides encouragement by sharing what he’s learned from his journey through frustrations, challenges, and successes. Most important, Telling Stories emphasizes that you are not alone on this journey and that writers must remain focused on what they love: the process of moving words on the page. By focusing on that purpose, Martin contends, the journey will always take you where you’re meant to go.
 

“‘Why shouldn’t good writing be hard? It’s our attempt at salvation,’ Lee Martin says in this exceptional book. Martin, through craft lessons, exercises, and literary examples, helps writers discover salvation one carefully selected word at a time.”-Sue William Silverman, author of Fearless Confessions: A Writer’s Guide to Memoir
  “Lee Martin has long been one of my favorite writers of fiction and memoir, and now he’s one of my favorite writers of advice about the writer’s craft. Everyone who writes, or wants to, should read this wise and inspiring book.”-David Jauss, author of On Writing Fiction

Lee Martin is a distinguished professor of English and teaches creative writing at Ohio State University. He is the author of several books, including Such a Life (Nebraska, 2012), From Our House (Nebraska, 2009), The Bright Forever (finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for fiction), and Turning Bones (Nebraska, 2003).