responses to WRITE YOUR HEART OUT

From Amazon.com customers...
"The book's lovely, anecdotal prose is geared toward the person who has always wanted to write, but who, for whatever reason, just hasn't gotten around to it. Don't waste years waiting for life to become less busy, McClanahan says. "No one actually has time to write; each writer must make the time."

"Write Your Heart Out was on the bedside table while I was in Florida on vacation. I picked it up, read it, thought about it all the way home, ordered my own copy, began to write, and just published my first book. The inspiration, the encouragement, the gentle nudges in Write Your Heart Out are wonderful. I'm going to recommend it to my writing class."

Excerpted from a letter by writer and NPR commentator Ellen Morris Prewitt, who leads workshops in Memphis...
"Dear Rebecca,
The Write Your Heart Out talk was a wonderful success! The bookshop manager fell in love with your book and is going to "foist it on everyone I know." One woman, who's buried both her mother and her mother-in-law in 6 months, described crawling into the bathtub during one of her low times and reading your book. She read the statement that said you are going to be a new person after you go through these experiences, and she crawled out of the tub and wrote for 2 hours. Really, everyone was inspired. We had about 20-25 folks there, and they were buying the book for friends."

Excerpted from the blog of a well-published MFA graduate, Carol Peters...
"Since I learned of McClanahan, I have read three of her books. Tonight I finished Write Your Heart Out: Exploring & Expressing What Matters to You, an inspirational volume on why and how to write. She has given me a raft of new ideas, including passage journals, correspondence poems, and joy lists. I place this book with respect next to Word Painting: A Guide to Writing More Descriptively, which is easily the finest text on how to write description I have come across. My favorite quote from Write Your Heart Out comes from her nephew, a remark he made after watching her work on an essay: "Oh, I get it now. You just put words down on paper and then you scratch them out. I can do that."