It Takes a Certain Type to Be a Writer
And Hundreds of Other Facts from the World of Writing
Published on 1. August 2003
208 pages
978-1-60925-073-7 (ISBN)
Description
Erin Barrett and Jack Mingo are the Queen and King of trivia, relied upon by game shows including Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and game manufacturers. Millions of people read their daily newspaper column and together they've written twenty books. The sixth book in the Totally Riveting Utterly Entertaining (TRUE) Trivia Series puts a magnifying lens on the wacky world of writers. It Takes a Certain Type to Be a Writer will tell you everything you could possibly want, or were afraid, to know about writers, publishing, and the writing life. Bite-sized facts are organized into chapters including "Everyone's a Critic," "Stranger than Fiction," "From Bad to Verse," "Kiddie Lit," "A Word's Worth," and many more. You'll learn things like:
- Where Proust wrote (in bed with gloves on)
- What Voltaire drank (70 cups of coffee a day)
- And how James Cain prepared himself for yet another publisher's rejection. (The title The Postman Always Rings Twice had nothing to do with the plot of the best-selling novel. It was a private joke of author James Cain. His postman would ring his doorbell twice whenever the many-times-rejected manuscript came back from a publisher.)
More details
Other editions
Additional editions
Erin Barrett | Jack Mingo
It Takes a Certain Type to Be a Writer
And Hundreds of Other Facts from the World of Writing
Book
08/2003
Conari Press,U.S.
€14.50
Article not available at the moment
Persons
Erin Barrett and Jack Mingo have authored 20 books, including How the Cadillac Got Its Fins, The Couch Potato Guide to Life and the bestselling Just Curious Jeeves. They have written articles for many major periodicals including The New York Times, Salon, Reader's Digest, and The Washington Post and have generated more than 30,000 questions for trivia games and game shows such as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. Their website, which lists their "This Day in History" nationallysyndicated column.
Content
- Cover
- Copyright
- Contents
- A Word from the Authors
- Chapter One: Don't Quit Your Day Job
- Chapter Two: If at First You Don't Succeed
- Chapter Three: What's in a Name?
- Chapter Four: The Ties That Bind...and Sometimes Gag
- Chapter Five: Tips & Tricks of the Trade
- Chapter Six: Eveyone's a Critic
- Chapter Seven: Stranger Than Fiction
- Chapter Eight: Quoth the Writer
- Chapter Nine: From Bad to Verse
- Chapter Ten: By the Numbers
- Chapter Eleven: You're My Inspiration
- Chapter Twelve: Kiddie Lit
- Chapter Thirteen: Incognito
- Chapter Fourteen: Saints & Sinners, Quirks & Outrages
- Chapter Fifteen: "Easy Reading Is Damned Hard Writing
- Chapter Sixteen: A Word's Worth
- Chapter Seventeen: Random Facts from the Bibliophiles
- Chapter Eighteen: The End
- Selected References
- Acknowledgments
- Backcover
