By Nava Atlas 

In this celebration of twelve remarkable "literary ladies," Nava Atlas reveals how such pioneering authors as Louisa May Alcott, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Willa Cather, Edna Ferber, Madeleine L'Engle, L.M. Montgomery, Anais Nin, George Sand, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Edith Wharton, and Virginia Woolf pursued their dreams of becoming a writer--and how the lessons of their lives can inspire today's writers. Drawing on the personal journals, diaries, memoirs, and letters of these brilliant, unique women, Atlas explores how they balanced their own individual literary voices, dealt with rejection, struggled with their own inner demons, and basked in the triumphs of success.

The Literary Ladies' Guide to the Writing Life is a lively and incisive look at what it takes to be a writer and to hold onto belief in one's own talent, sometimes despite enormous obstacles. Sumptuously illustrated, this book brings to life these twelve classic authors in their own vividly compelling words. Nava Atlas accompanies their quotations with fascinating biographical details and her own insightful reflections on the writing life. As she says in her introduction, this book is "a treasury of intimate glimpses into the unfolding creative process across twelve brilliant careers." Atlas includes the voices of other female writers as well, ranging from Zora Neale Hurston to Colette to Anne Lamott, to capture a spectrum of literary wisdom. For all who dream of living the writing life, this is a book to treasure. 

Genre: Writing

Hardcover w/ Jacket: 192 Pages

130+ color/BW vintage photos 

ISBN: 978-1-4162-0632-2   

Publisher: Sellers Publishing (March 2011) 

The Literary Ladies' Guide to the Writing Life is available for purchase at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, IndieBound, Borders, and at bookstores nationwide.  

Learn more about Nava's work at VegKitchen.com and NavaAtlasArt.com, in addition to LiteraryLadiesGuide.com, and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.

A couple of weeks later the book came in the mail with a note from Nava that said, "It was sheer coincidence that I mentioned WOW on page 136 and then discovered the blog tour package which I'll soon be participating in." Her publicist had scheduled the blog tour  and picked our service but he didn't realize we were mentioned in the book, and Nava didn't know about the connection either until the tour was scheduled. Cool coincidence! I guess it was meant to be!  

Here's an excerpt from page 136, under the section "Money Matters":

Making a living at any creative field requires a good deal of calculation and often some compromise. If one is determined  to profit from writing, there are many ways to do so aside from pursuing the elusive dream of penning a masterwork of modern literature and hoping it finds a place on the bestseller list. Niche markets for nonfiction will always exist; books and magazines on writers' markets and websites like WOW! Women On Writing (wow-womenonwriting.com) give solid advice to this end; and, competitive though they may be, teaching gigs and grants help augment writing incomes as well.

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The "Money Matters" chapter also happens to be one of my favorites. It takes a look at the role of money played in the writing lives of several of the literary ladies--"from keeping their writing practice separate from money-making almost entirely (like Anais Nin did, though only up to a certain point of her life) to trying to make every word billable (like Louisa May Alcott did, from her first small payments to her later substantial income)."