David Keyes

A compelling and helpful book for incipient or experienced writers.

Keyes shares his insights with us, encouraging us to find and use the power of positive anxiety, to write beyond all those concerns, to write in the nude if it stimulates you to write at your best.

Although aimed at those who toil in the writing trenches, Keyes’s anecdotal approach to the topic makes the book interesting for nonwriters as well. Stories of the rituals, totems and habits of working writers trying to manage their anxiety make fascinating reading for anyone who has ever wondered about how writers work.

Ralph Keyes’s marvelous little book, The Courage to Write, is full of uplifting suggestions … [a] down-to-earth book full of encouragement and wisdom suitable for both the master writer and the timid novice.

Keyes includes an insightful chapter on motivations to write, including the desire to stick one’s tongue out at the people from one’s past … Keyes has written interesting chapters about writer’s block as well as the totems and rituals that famous writers have used to help them overcome their blocks. He also covers the positive …

[Keyes’s] latest work is, on the surface, an entertaining and insightful how-to book for aspiring and working writers….What makes it so appealing is its straightforward approach to the writing life and to its often eccentric practitioners….If you’ve ever wondered what happens before a writer shows up at your local bookstore to sign The Great American …