Press Release: Naked, Drunk, and Writing by Adair Lara
Publicity Contact: Kara Van de Water — 510-285-2966 • kara.vandewater@tenspeed.com
On-Sale Date: August 31, 2010
Naked, Drunk, and Writing
Shed Your Inhibitions and Craft a Compelling Memoir or Personal Essay
Adair Lara
“Half of the people I know seem to have taken classes and workshops with San Francisco’s legendary writer and teacher Adair Lara. She is very savvy and smart and hugely entertaining.” — Anne Lamott, author of Bird by Bird
The award-winning author of an autobiographical newspaper column, Adair Lara has written more than ten books, including the memoir Hold Me Close, Let Me Go. Packed with insight and wit, Naked, Drunk, and Writing is the culmination of her extensive experience as a writer, editor, and teacher. In this instructive and refreshingly irreverent guide, she shows aspiring writers how to cast off self-doubt and become skilled storytellers.
Knowing that the more intensely individual a person’s thoughts are, the more they will have meaning for other people, Lara guides readers like a friend through all stages of memoir creation. Her writing is simultaneously vibrant, wise, and laugh-out-loud funny, putting even the most reserved writers at ease. Through interactive exercises and illuminating examples and anecdotes, Lara coaches writers to take small, manageable steps to break out of their shells and to write with an honesty that is deeply personal.
As the title suggests, this is not your run-of-the-mill writing book. Naked, Drunk, and Writing shows how writing about yourself is like stripping down to the flesh—a kind of “word-drunkenness” that makes you want to shed the layers between you and your reader and turn your experiences into art.
Lara’s column for the San Francisco Chronicle enjoyed a cult following in the San Francisco Bay Area at the dawn of an era that blazed with interest in the real stories of other people’s lives. Personal essays popped up on the end pages of magazines and in newspaper features, and bestsellers like Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes kicked off an avalanche of memoirs. Today, her writing courses and sold-out workshops are legendary and wildly popular.
This book’s readers will learn from a writer’s writer how to: craft exceptional essays and memoirs, keep writing when discouraged, revise to perfection, and get published. Naked, Drunk, and Writing will inspire new and veteran writers alike to shed their inhibitions and become the writers they always wanted to be.
ADAIR LARA started her career by writing for local magazines—first as managing editor of San Francisco Focus, the city magazine, and then as executive editor of SF, a design magazine. She wrote a column every Tuesday and Thursday for the San Francisco Chronicle for twelve years, winning the Associated Press Award for Best Columnist in California, and was a reporter in the paper’s books and feature department for an additional four years. She has published more than ten books and is a contributor to magazines such as MORE, Reader’s Digest, Glamour, and Ladies’ Home Journal. Lara leads sold-out writing workshops and conducts private memoir consulting in the San Francisco Bay Area. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and is available for interviews. For more information, visit Adairlara.com.
Naked, Drunk, and Writing: Shed Your Inhibitions and Craft a Compelling Memoir or Personal Essay
by Adair Lara
$14.99 paper • 256 pages • 5 ½ x 8 ¼ inches • ISBN: 978-1-58008-480-2 • E-book: 978-1-58008-656-1
TEN SPEED PRESS, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group
