"This is a gorgeous book, one that will inspire anyone to make the next sentence."-Jericho Brown, Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry 2020

"A hymn of praise for the craft of weaving words in order to survive."-Kitty Kelley

Roger Rosenblatt has always been "mad about the writing life." In this new collection, he shares the stories and insights about writing that have inspired him, as a journalist, a columnist for The Washington Post, an essayist for Time magazine and The New Republic, and then as the author of best-selling books like Making Toast, Rules for Aging, Kayak Morning, and Unless It Moves the Human Heart. The new and beloved pieces in The Story I Am: Mad About the Writing Life, drawn from his vast body of work, celebrate the art, the craft, and the soul of writing.

Here are essays and excerpts on the rewards and punishments of the life of a writer, along with thoughts on how to write, what to write, and why writing lies at the heart of human hope and experience. Reviewing Rosenblatt's memoir The Boy Detective in the New York Times Book Review, Pete Hamill said Rosenblatt "writes the way a great jazz musician plays, moving from one emotion to another." For Rosenblatt, writing, like jazz, is the art of improvisation. Rosenblatt writes that "Writing makes justice desirable, evil intelligible, grief endurable, and love possible." In a nutshell, it's worth a life.

Roger Rosenblatt is the author of five New York Times Notable Books of the Year, and three Times bestsellers. He has written six off-Broadway plays, and the screenplay for his bestselling novel, Lapham Rising, being made into a film starring Frank Langella and Stockard Channing. His essays for Time magazine and the PBS NewsHour have won two George Polk Awards, the Peabody, and the Emmy, among others. In 2015, he won the Kenyon Review Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement. He is Distinguished Professor of English and Writing at SUNY Stony Brook/ Southampton.

Roger Rosenblatt's love song to the written word, in a collection of pieces that celebrate the art, craft, and the soul of writing, from someone who has done it joyfully and successfully all his life. Kirkus Reviews noted that he has excelled in every form. Here are essays and excerpts on the rewards and punishments of leading a life as a writer, along with thoughts on how to write, what to write, and why writing lies at the heart of human hope and experience. To the author-whose style and method have often has been compared to that of a jazz musician-writing, like jazz, is the art of improvisation. One hunts for the right word as one hunts for the right note in an effort to discover something surprising, even thrilling, and entirely one's own. The great satisfaction of the work, the music of the endeavor, comes from sharing these discoveries with others, from telling the world something useful and remarkable about itself. The author believes, "Writing makes justice desirable, evil intelligible, grief endurable, and love possible." In a nutshell, it's worth a life.