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Creative Writing

Books for Creative Writing

If you are using the library to conduct background research for your creative writing, you could of course be searching for anything.

This guide covers the more predictable reasons you might use the library (books on craft of writing, books on craft of teaching creative writing, style manuals, books on publication and the publishing industry) as well as a general outline of the infinite other topics you might explore here. 

This guide was originally compiled by Anne Hays. 

Searching Tools

If you are searching for books, you probably want to start in one of the following places:

Subject Headings

“Creative writing” is a subject heading, however, it seems it's most often used from an educational perspective. Subject headings for books about the craft of creative writing tend to end with “authorship.” You will find MANY titles if you do a search within your genre this way:

  • Authorship
  • Autobiography -- Authorship
  • Children's literature -- Authorship
  • Fiction -- Authorship
  • Journalism -- Authorship
  • Poetry -- Authorship
  • Translating and interpreting

Call Numbers

  • P 306+                    Language, linguistic theory -- Translating and interpreting
  • PN 1059 - 1065      Poetry -- Theory -- Technique
  • PN 1660 - 1653      Drama -- Technique to dramatic composition
  • PN 3355 - 3373      Prose Fiction -- Technique, Authorship

Style Manuals

Style Manuals

Publishing

On Publishing

Note: Most print directories of agents and editors are now published online. See the Website section of this guide for resources.