I’m a confessed notebook, sketchbook, and journal nerd, so I eat books like this like candy. Twenty-six writers on what they actually do with a notebook. Sue Grafton, Dorianne Laux, Kim Stafford, John Dufresne, Kyoko Mori, Ilan Stavans, and a bunch of others, all working the same question from different angles — what goes in, what the thing is for, which pen, which paper, whether anybody else ever gets to read it. Several print journal entries alongside the finished work that came out of them, so you can see the raw material and what it turned into. Phillip Lopate’s foreword notes (haha) the notebook is where you get to write badly on purpose, to be unfair and clumsy and stupid with nobody watching. Happily guilty as charged.
Writers and Their Notebooks