Writing About Your Life: A Journey into the Past

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(as of Dec 02, 2025 18:13:17 UTC – Details)

An ingeniously constructed teaching memoir from the author of the bestselling On Writing Well — “You learn without knowing it.” (Frank McCourt, author of Angela’s Ashes)

Written with elegance, warmth, and humor, this highly original “teaching memoir” by William Zinsser–renowned bestselling author of On Writing Well gives you the tools to organize and recover your past, and the confidence to believe in your life narrative. His method is to take you on a memoir of his own: 13 chapters in which he recalls dramatic, amusing, and often surprising moments in his long and varied life as a writer, editor, teacher, and traveler. Along the way, Zinsser pauses to explain the technical decisions he made as he wrote about his life. They are the same decisions you’ll have to make as you write about your own life: matters of selection, condensation, focus, attitude, voice, and tone.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Grand Central Publishing
Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 10, 2005
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1569243794
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1569243794
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.75 x 0.9 x 8.25 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #112,755 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #26 in Rhetoric (Books) #94 in Authorship Reference #113 in Fiction Writing Reference (Books)
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