Author Dinty W. Moore, Professor of English at Ohio University, is having a lot of fun with his new book, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals.
From drawing on napkins at Casa Nueva to explaining em dashes, Moore’s book, he writes on the first page, “tackles more urgent questions, questions more relevant to the modern reader: ‘What is the essay? And why? And how ought we to feel about it, given that there is nothing on television this evening?’” notes a review at A.V. Club.
An innocent little Q&A at the Perch (Penguin Random House blog)—Writing Tips From Dinty W. Moore, author of Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy—has landed Moore’s Mister Writer Guy persona with a whole lot of social media coverage. Everybody seems to be tweeting and posting about it, even a presidential candidate. Maybe.
Find Dinty Moore on Facebook and join in the conversation.
Moore is also Director of Ohio University’s Creative Writing program.
About the Book
Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy,
I have a hot crush on the em dash. What does my need to stuff—while simultaneously fracturing—my sentences—with the meandering, the explanatory, the discursive, the perhaps not-entirely-necessary—say about me?
—Cheryl Strayed
Have you ever wished there were an advice columnist for writers, but one who didn’t take things so damned seriously? This unique writing guide pairs questions sent in by top contemporary essayists with hilariously witty answers and essays from acclaimed author Dinty W. Moore. Phillip Lopate asks for advice on writing about your ex without sounding like an ass, Julianna Baggott worries that to be a great writer you must drink like a fish, and Roxane Gay asks whether it’s kosher to write about writing.
Taking advantage of all the tools available to today’s personal essayist—egregious puns, embarrassing anecdotes, and cocktail napkins—Professor Moore answers these questions, and more, demystifying the world of nonfiction once and for all. With a tip of the hat to history’s most infamous essay—Montaigne’s “Of Cannibals”—this book provides rollicking relief for writers in distress.
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