Truth Is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow: A DIY Manual for the Construction of Stories

＂Truth Is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow is one of the best books on writing I’ve ever read. It’s also the funniest by a country mile.＂ --Richard Russo, author of the North Bath trilogy

The long-awaited craft book from Steve Almond, based on three decades of writing, failing, and trying again.

In Truth is the Arrow, Mercy is the Bow, Steve Almond shares the insights gleaned from three decades as a beloved teacher and mentor, and a considerably less-beloved literary rabble rouser. His tone is irreverent. His ideas are iconoclastic. And his approach is stubbornly, radically, empathic. The goal is to explode the well-meaning but misguided myths that hold us back from writing our deepest and most honest work, to awaken the joys of storytelling while also confronting how grueling the process can be. Truth features chapters on plot, character, and chronology, but travels far beyond the earnest aims of most creative writing books, with essays about humor, sex, obsession, and writer’s block, as well as prompts to generate new work and a rollicking Frequently Asked Questions section. You’ll never think about writing the same way again.

Steve Almond is the author of eleven books of fiction and nonfiction, including the New York Times bestsellers Candyfreak and Against Football. His essays and reviews have been published in venues ranging from the New York Times Magazine to Ploughshares to Poets & Writers, and his short fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, Best American Mysteries, and Best American Erotica. Almond is the recipient of grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. He cohosted the Dear Sugars podcast with his pal Cheryl Strayed for four years, and teaches Creative Writing at the Neiman Fellowship at Harvard and Wesleyan. He lives in Arlington, Massachusetts, with his family and his anxiety.