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Carl Phillips

My Trade Is Mystery: Seven Meditations from a Life in Writing

My Trade Is Mystery: Seven Meditations from a Life in Writing

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  • More about My Trade Is Mystery: Seven Meditations from a Life in Writing


Carl Phillips' book "Writing Life" is a collection of essays that provide insights and lessons learned about the writing life, offering guidance and support to aspiring writers. Drawing on his experience as a poet and teacher, Phillips offers practical advice and encourages writers to embrace mystery and speculation.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 112 pages
Publication date: 10 October 2023
Publisher: Yale University Press



An invaluable companion for any writer seeking to make the writing life a more complex and cooperative venture


"Illuminating, deeply endearing essays." - Ron Charles, Washington Post


"A lovely, loving letter to aspiring writers." - Diego Báez, Booklist



In these intimate and eloquent meditations, the award-winning poet Carl Phillips shares lessons he has learned about the writing life, an "apprenticeship to what can never fully be mastered."


Drawing on forty years of teaching and mentoring emerging writers, he weaves his experiences as a poet with the necessary survival skills, including ambition, stamina, silence, politics, practice, audience, and community.


In the tradition of Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, Rainer Maria Rilkes's Letters to a Young Poet, and Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, this is an invaluable companion for writers at every stage of their journey. Phillips' book serves as a partner in speculation and an invitation to embrace mystery.

Weight: 124g
Dimension: 149 x 204 x 16 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780300274141

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