Monica Wood Books In Order

Secret Language

Connie has trouble with time. She always has to stop and think a minute: How old is she now?…
Faith always seems to know, though her life is the same as Connie s: back and forth to theater towns all over. The same dingy food, the same noisy sidewalks, the same cramped suites in the same hotels…
Sometimes they go to school, sometimes not, though they always have books to read: big packets of books that Armand sends to them in every city. Armand is their parents lawyer, the only person they know who likes children…
. Faith and Connie endured the same childhood as daughters of egocentric, semi famous actors who can scarcely take care of themselves. But the two sisters could not be more different. Connie learned to beg for attention, clamor for approval, and fill the silence with words. Faith turned inward, shrinking from the tender emotions that make up an ordinary life. Despite their differences, the sisters came to rely on each other exclusively. But lately, after years of quiet connection, Faith and Connie seem to have lost the ties that once held them close. Faith has a home and two growing sons, but is still unable to fathom unconditional love. Connie, a flight attendant, is always searching, ever expecting to find her true place in life at the end of each long flight. But a series of shocking, revelatory events will bring the sisters back to each other and forever alter how they define love, fulfillment, and most importantly, family.

My Only Story

An unconventional love story frames this graceful, funny, and moving novel by a writer of exceptional talent. Rita, a hair stylist in her 20s attuned to the suffering of others and the ways that she can help, meets John Reed who, she observes, though not yet out of his thirties, ‘…
seemed old, the way all sad people do.’ As they come to know, trust, and eventually love one another, John tells Rita ‘his only story,’ the one story that each of us tells that defines us the most. In a dark, terrible moment five years earlier, John’s brother Roger killed his own wife and then himself, orphaning their then 3 year old daughter, Aileen. After Aileen is adopted by her dead mother’s close knit trio of sisters, John is excluded from contact with her in memory of his brother’s tragic act. With Rita’s help, ties are slowly reestablished with Aileen, and John and Rita’s own relationship moves in a direction that seems at once inevitable and completely unexpected. An exploration of love, sacrifice, and the bonds of family which will appeal to readers of Lorrie Moore, Ann Hood, and Rosellyn Brown, Monica Wood’s novel speaks to our deepest longing and brightest hopes.

Any Bitter Thing

Richard Russo has celebrated Monica Wood’s fiction as ‘thoroughly captivating warm and wise and beautifully written,’ and Andre Dubus III praised it as ‘luminous and graceful entertaining yet transcendent.’ Any Bitter Thing, Wood’s brilliant new novel, is her breakout book, a timely, gripping, and compassionate tale of family, faith, and deeply hidden truths. One of its greatest strengths is its continuous ability to defy expectations. It’s not what you think. It is worse. Lizzy Mitchell was raised from the age of two by her uncle, a Catholic priest. When she was nine, he was falsely accused of improprieties with her and dismissed from his church, and she was sent away to boarding school. Now thirty years old and in a failing marriage, she is nearly killed in a traffic accident. What she discovers when she sets out to find the truths surrounding the accident and about the accusations that led to her uncle’s death does more than change her life. With deft insight into the snares of the human heart, Monica Wood has written an intimate and emotionally expansive novel full of understanding and hope.

Ernie’s Ark

The paper mill looms up from the riverbank in Abbott Falls, Maine, a town once drenched with ordinary hopes and dreams, now praying for a small drop of good fortune. Ernie Whitten, a pipe fitter, was three weeks away from a pension secured retirement when the union went on strike eight months ago. Now his wife Marie is ill. Struck with sudden inspiration, Ernie builds a giant ark in his backyard. It is a work of art for his wife; a vessel to carry them both away; or a plea for God to spare Marie, come hell or high water. As the ark takes shape, the rest of the town carries on. There’s Dan Little, a building code enforcer who comes to fine Ernie for the ark and makes a significant discovery about himself; Francine Love, a precocious thirteen year old who longs to be a part of the family like world of the union workers; and Atlantic Pulp & Paper CEO Henry John McCoy, an impatient man wearily determined to be a good father to his twenty six year old daughter. The people of Abbott Falls will try their best to hold a community together, against the fiercest of odds…
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Characters & Viewpoint (By:Orson Scott Card)

Vivid and memorable characters aren’t born: they have to be madeThis book is a set of tools: literary crowbars, chisels, mallets, pliers and tongs. Use them to pry, chip, yank and sift good characters out of the place where they live in your imagination. Award winning author Orson Scott Card explains in depth the techniques of inventing, developing and presenting characters, plus handling viewpoint in novels and short stories. With specific examples, he spells out your narrative options& 151the choices you’ll make in creating fictional people so ‘real’ that readers will feel they know them like members of their own families. You’ll learn how to:Draw characters from a variety of sourcesMake characters show who they are by the things they do and say, and by their individual ‘style’Develop characters readers will love& 151or love to hateDistinguish among major characters, minor characters and walk ons, and develop each appropriatelyChoose the most effective viewpoint to reveal the characters and move the storytellingDecide how deeply you should explore your characters’ thoughts, emotions, and attitudes

Plot (By:Ansen Dibell)

This book is about identifying the choices available when creating, fixing, steering, and discovering plots and then learning what narrative problems they are apt to create and how to choose an effective strategy for solving them. The result? Strong, solid stories and novels that move.

Plot (By:Ansen Dibell)

This book is about identifying the choices available when creating, fixing, steering, and discovering plots and then learning what narrative problems they are apt to create and how to choose an effective strategy for solving them. The result? Strong, solid stories and novels that move.

Dialogue (By:Lewis Turco)

Dialogue is perhaps the most powerful element in fiction. Whether writing novels, short stories, or scripts, you will learn how to utilize dialogue to dramatize conflict, the most effective balance between dialogue and other story elements as well as the difference between effective dialogue and real speech.

Dialogue (By:Lewis Turco)

Dialogue is perhaps the most powerful element in fiction. Whether writing novels, short stories, or scripts, you will learn how to utilize dialogue to dramatize conflict, the most effective balance between dialogue and other story elements as well as the difference between effective dialogue and real speech.

Beginnings, Middles & Ends (By:Nancy Kress)

Translating a flash of inspiration into a compelling story requires careful crafting. The words a writer chooses, how they describe characters, and the way they orchestrate conflict make the difference between a story that’s slow to begin, flounders midway, or trails off at the end and one that holds the interest of readers and editors to the final page. Since it was launched in 1988, ‘The Elements of Fiction Writing’ series has helped readers improve their fiction work, one essential ‘element’ at a time.

Description

When writers make their Descriptions fresh, they move their stories forward and imbue their work with atmosphere. Monica Wood helps squeeze the greatest flavour from language and provides insight into how detail, editing, style, point of view and original word depictions can be used to create unforgettable images that will stick with readers for a lifetime.

The Pocket Muse

The Pocket Muse is every writer’s key to finding writing inspiration when and where they want it. It includes hundreds of thought provoking prompts, exercises and illustrations that immediately help them to: get started writing; overcome writer’s block; develop a writing habit; think more creatively; master style, revision and other elements of the craft.

The rich variety of exercises will help writers to create entire stories or focus on a single aspect of their writing. It will also encourage them to think about how they write in new and surprising ways. It’s truly a unique book, both fun and effective. It will teach, cheer and inspire writers as never before.

The Pocket Muse 2

The Pocket Muse is every writer’s key to finding writing inspiration when and where they want it. It includes hundreds of thought provoking prompts, exercises and illustrations that immediately help them to: get started writing; overcome writer’s block; develop a writing habit; think more creatively; master style, revision and other elements of the craft.

The rich variety of exercises will help writers to create entire stories or focus on a single aspect of their writing. It will also encourage them to think about how they write in new and surprising ways. It’s truly a unique book, both fun and effective. It will teach, cheer and inspire writers as never before.

The Way Life Should Be

17 writers. 17 stories. One great state. Original, unusual, classic, tender, amazing…
these are the stories of Maine writers. The Way Life Should Be is a compilation of contemporary stories by some of Maine’s best established and up and coming writers. Their stories range in length from 3 pages to 30 pages and capture everything from daily life in Maine to tales of flying babies. Maine, with Portland at its epicenter, has one of the most original and thriving writing scenes in the country. The Way Life Should Be is the must have book that epitomizes this vibrant creative community.