I’ve been obsessed with studying the artistic process for over 25 years since I got my degree in Studio Art and Art History at Vanderbilt University. After getting my MFA in Creative Writing, I headed out to Hollywood to produce national television for over twenty years. I’ve worked with many of the greatest actors, filmmakers, and writers of our time and written my own bestselling novels about artists. I read as many books on the artistic process as possible. My mission has always been to ensure that every person knows that they, too, can be artists – creating art isn’t just for the “great”, it’s for everyone.
This is probably the most challenging read here, but so worth the effort if you want to dive deep into one of the most unique artistic minds of our time. If you’re not a trained actor, you might not understand all of the nuances here – Mamet is a definite theater guy and doesn’t stop down to explain every detail here -- but any artist can learn Mamet’s biting, witty, shocking creative tips. I recommend just letting this one wash over you the first time, but if you give yourself to this text and to Mamet, it is sure to give you a new perspective on the way we all create art and hopefully inspire you to delve into some creative expression that you were always too scared to try.
The Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, director and teacher has written a blunt, unsparingly honest guide to acting. In True and False David Mamet overturns conventional opinion and tells aspiring actors what they really need to know. He leaves no aspect of acting untouched: how to judge the role, approach the part, work with the playwright; the right way to undertake auditions and the proper approach to agents and the business in general. True and False slaughters a wide range of sacred cows and yet offers an invaluable guide to the acting profession.
First, an admission. It took me two attempts to read
this book; the first failed because it was so unlike any of the other Cornwell
books I have read; the second worked because I got over my preconceptions!
Set
in Elizabethan London and focused totally on the world of the actors who make
up Shakespeare's theatre, it moves
from personal angst to the intrigue and double-dealing around the theft of the
manuscript of Shakespeare's latest play.
As always with Cornwell, you get a
sense of the world in which it is set through brief, gritty descriptions that
let you get into the plot without pages of exposition.
The hero, Richard
Shakespeare, is a fallible but likable character who provides a human lens
through which we learn about Elizabethan theater and the complex politics of
the era.
A dramatic new departure for international bestselling author Bernard Cornwell, FOOLS AND MORTALS takes us into the heart of the Elizabethan era, long one of his favourite periods of British history.
'With all the vivid history that is his trademark, Bernard Cornwell transports the readers to the playhouses, backstreets and palaces of Shakespeare's London with added depth and compassion' Philippa Gregory
In the heart of Elizabethan England, young Richard Shakespeare dreams of a glittering career in the London playhouses, dominated by his older brother, William. But as a penniless actor with a silver tongue, Richard's onetime gratitude begins to sour,…
A longtime student of history, particularly WW2 and the Cold War, my interest was personally piqued when I started to discover more about how my husband’s family narrowly escaped capture by the Gestapo – and certain death in a concentration camp. I’m driven to write novels set in this era for middle grade kids – featuring brave young heroes faced with moral dilemmas– so they can learn about the horrors of antisemitism, tyrants, and war because “those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.”
Widge is an orphan in Elizabethan England, where orphans are sadly too common. But Widge is unusual. He has a unique talent which he learned from his first master: he knows a secret kind of shorthand. Sold to a dastardly villain who wants to use that talent to steal Shakespeare’s newest play, Widge finds himself in London apprenticing with the theatre company. Will he steal the play or risk his life to be loyal to the only “family” he’s ever known? Inspired by Shakespeare’s Lord Chamberlain's Men – and a very real problem of plays being stolen – there’s plenty of action, including swashbuckling swordplay. From the first page, I found myself rooting for Widge, hoping he would make the right choice and live to become an actor in the company.
A delightful adveture full of humor and heart set in Elizabethan England!
Widge is an orphan with a rare talent for shorthand. His fearsome master has just one demand: steal Shakespeare's play "Hamlet"--or else. Widge has no choice but to follow orders, so he works his way into the heart of the Globe Theatre, where Shakespeare's players perform. As full of twists and turns as a London alleyway, this entertaining novel is rich in period details, colorful characters, villainy, and drama.
* "A fast-moving historical novel that introduces an important era with casual familiarity." --School Library Journal, starred review
I have always been a very imaginative individual and even now I think of my imagination as a place I can escape to. I build worlds and dimensions in my head and visit them often especially when I'm writing my own books, poems, or drafting characters. I'm a very visual individual and pay attention to detail so these imagined worlds can become quite complex and intricate. That's why I have always loved adventure, it's such a privilege to be given access to other worlds and minds through the medium of books. You get a chance to wander around someone else's imagination – what a way to escape, what an adventure in and of itself!
I loved this book for many reasons growing up but I think first and foremost because it was one of the first books I had ever seen with an illustration of a black child on the front cover aimed at children around my age. It was also turned into a TV series and I remember realising at this point in my early teens that there are so many ways that a book can be interpreted. Not just in the minds of their readers but through different creative mediums and this really excited my imagination as I have been acting since I was small and very involved in many different forms of music. This made Whizziwig, a story about possibility at every turn as the subject matter is also about chancing upon an alien life form in your backyard with whom the protagonist becomes friends. Plus, it was the first…
Whizziwig is an alien - a very special alien who makes wishes come true, but only wishes made for someone else! Every wish granted gets his space ship one step nearer to becoming repaired. But every wish granted also causes chaos for Ben and his family.
Hello. My name is Mike Russell. I write books (novels, short story collections and novellas) and make visual art (mostly paintings, occasionally sculptures). I love art and books that are surreal and magical because that is the way life seems to me, and I love art and books that are mind-expanding because we need to expand our minds to perceive just how surreal and magical life is. My books have been described as strange fiction, weird fiction, surrealism, magic realism, fantasy fiction… but I just like to call them Strange Books.
Discovering the art of Alejandro Jodorowsky helped me to remove limitations from my own art. It was a joy to discover his work and it was a further joy to discover that his life has been just as uncompromising, surreal, and magical as his art. He has hung out with circus people, shamans, great artists (Marcel Marceau, Leonora Carrington, Jean Giraud… the list goes on). His novels, autobiographies, comic books, movies, and pictures are all fantastic.
Not a traditional autobiography composed of a chronological recounting of memories, Dance of Realityrepaints events from Jodorowsky's life from the perspective of an unleashed imagination. Like the psychomagic and metagenealogy therapies he created, this autobiography exposes the mythic models and family templates upon which the events of everyday life are founded. It reveals the development of Jodorowsky's realization that all problems are rooted in the family tree and explains, through vivid examples from his own life, particularly interactions with his father and mother, how the individual's road to true fulfilment means casting off the phantoms projected by parents on their…
I’m a full-time writer, part-time editor, and avid reader of romances between queer women. I’ve just published my twenty-third novel, and I’m still amazed and humbled at getting to live my dream: writing sapphic romances for a living. Discovering sapphic books was a life-saver for me since I grew up in a tiny little village, with no openly LGBT+ people around, and I love knowing that my books are now doing the same for my readers.
Breaking Character is a lesbian celebrity romance, but it’s also so much more than that. The main character, icy British actress Elizabeth, is in the closet for fear of risking her career. When she meets her younger colleague Summer, she starts letting someone close for the first time—and the result is a romance that is sizzling and sweet at the same time.
If you like age-gap romances with a fake relationship and well-written characters, this is a great introduction to Lee Winter’s books.
Life has become a farcical mess for icy British A-lister Elizabeth Thornton. America’s most-hated villain stars in a top-rated TV medical drama that she hates. Now, she’s been romantically linked to her perky, new co-star, Summer, due to the young woman’s clumsiness. As a closeted actress, that’s the last thing Elizabeth needs. If she could just get her dream movie role, life would be so much better. The only problem is that the eccentric French film-maker offering it insists on meeting her “girlfriend”, Summer, first.Summer Hayes is devastated when her co-star shuns her for accidentally sparking rumors they’re lovers. Now…
I love just how f**ked up this book is (pardon my language). I’m a huge horror fan, knowing Clive Barker as one of the legends of the genre I was very pleased to find out how much he didn’t hold back in this book.
I’ve watched many movies and read many books and this will forever be the book that I remember frowning, squinting and retorting in disgust at while also being unable to put it down. I wouldn’t want to guess how many times I blurted out “what the...” while reading this book.
“[Clive Barker] is a mapmaker of the mind, charting the farthest reaches of the imagination.” —Washington Post
From The Books of Blood to Hellraiser to Imajica, Abarat, and Mister B. Gone, Clive Barker’s extraordinary vision knows no bounds. With Coldheart Canyon, the New York Times bestselling master of dark fantasy who has been called “a cross between Stephen King and Gabriel Garcia Marquez” (Boston Herald) thrills readers with a “Hollywood ghost story” as audacious and chilling as anything he (or anyone else) has ever written.
Film's most popular action hero needs a place to heal after surgery that has gone…
Interior Chinatown is one of my all-time favorite
novels. It has a personal meaning for
me—through marriage I have ties to Los Angeles’s Chinatown, and Yu captures
that community’s past and present so compellingly.
The book’s main character, Willis Wu, pursues
his dream of becoming a Hollywood leading man, navigating the complexities of
Chinese American life and the pressures of American racism. Through Willis’s struggles, Yu provides a
sharp expose of Hollywood and its stereotypes. By using the format of a script and, at points fusing reality with
fantasy, Yu’s narrative becomes intensively gripping and visual.
This book drops you into Willis Wu’s world
and you feel his frustrations, share his dreams, and experience his
hope.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • “A shattering and darkly comic send-up of racial stereotyping in Hollywood” (Vanity Fair) and adeeply personal novel about race, pop culture, immigration, assimilation, and escaping the roles we are forced to play.
Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as the protagonist in his own life: he’s merely Generic Asian Man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but always he is relegated to a prop. Yet every day, he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant,…
I have firsthand experience in some of the harshest environments on the planet. I’ve survived sub-zero temperatures, hurricane force winds, sudden avalanches…and a career on Wall Street. I served as team captain of the first American Women’s Everest Expedition, climbed the highest peak on every continent (the “7 Summits”), and skied to both the North and South Poles. I spent four years as an adjunct professor at the US Military Academy at West Point. Awarded the 2019 Ellis Island Medal of Honor. I have a beer named after me. I love dogs. Three heart surgeries could not slow me down. NY Times bestselling author of On the Edge. I’ve had some high profile failures and have been the butt of late night talk show opening monologue jokes. Come at me!
Matt is an actor, which means he is constantly jockeying for jobs in what might be the most competitive industry on the planet. He explains that dealing with rejection and coming back after failure is part of the process of getting to the “YES” that you want in life. He shares advice from his interviews with bestselling authors, world-class athletes, successful entrepreneurs, and other actors—all of whom share their stories of rejection and defeat and make us realize that hearing “NO” does not mean you will not achieve your dreams – it just means that you need to try again, from a different angle.
Learn how to persevere and pivot to achieve your goals from a celebrated Hollywood actor
10,000 NOs: How to Overcome Rejection on the Way to Your YES chronicles actor Matthew Del Negro's tough journey from humble beginnings, through a sea of rejections, on the way to his eventual rise to become a recognizable face on some of history's most acclaimed television shows. Along the way, he learned hard lessons about perseverance, persistence, and resilience. Teaching readers how to make it through the tough times and deal with massive uncertainty by retaining the flexibility to change course and pivot to follow…
I’m a romance novelist who writes about otherwise smart people who deal badly with their feelings. Love, sorrow, jealousy, anger, hopelessness, and grief make appearances in my books because I write in a genre that centers the emotional lives of its characters. When I’m not wreaking havoc on fictional people, I take long walks and eavesdrop on conversations. I’m a recent transplant to Toronto, Canada, after having lived in New York City for more than 20 years.
In this Toronto-set contemporary, baker Lindsay coaches actor Ryan to appear on a celebrity cooking show. Ryan’s mother has recently passed away, and while Lindsay’s father died years ago, she lives with the residual effects of that loss. The two connect over food, laughter, and grief. What I loved about this book was how Lau sensitively explores how grief isn’t an isolated feeling with a set end, but rather is a set of feelings and actions that can have ripples over the course of a person’s life.
"[Lau's] trope-forward contemporaries are as sugary and irresistible as the desserts her characters create."—New York Times Book Review
A baker provides the sweetest escape for an actor in this charming romantic comedy.
Actor Ryan Kwok is back in Toronto after the promotional tour for his latest film, a rom-com that is getting less-than-stellar reviews. After years of constant work and the sudden death of his mother, Ryan is taking some much-needed time off. But as he tries to be supportive to his family, he struggles with his loss and doesn't know how to talk to his dad—who now trolls him…
