A Writing Kit that draws from both the history of literature and the practice of writing workshops to uncover the secrets of literary creation.

How did Racine, Chateaubriand, Stendhal, Balzac, Flaubert, or Proust “find” themselves? And so many others, from Jack Kerouac to Thomas Bernhardt, from Virginia Woolf to Marguerite Duras, how can their works answer novelists struggling with the passion for writing, but also with blocks, doubts, and wanderings? Drawing from the history of literature and the practice of writing workshops, Jean Rouaud and Nathalie Skowronek offer us a journey to the sources of creation, mixed with advice and exercises, to deliver a very personal poetic art.

“Writing is losing oneself with the appearance of someone who seems to know where they are going, for writing involves this state of loss, out of control, which can always be controlled later. One must accept this discomfort, follow the movement of their text, and trust it until they gain freedom and open their imagination. Through exercises and experiments, one seeks to find their own literary blueprint, in other words, their language, form, and subject matter. Writing also means confronting that formidable catalogue of “works” deposited over time. If they fascinate us so much, it is because we have learned to see the world through the eyes of those who asked the same questions, adapted to their era, prompted by it and the long memory of the centuries.”—Jean Rouaud & Nathalie Skowronek

• Thanks to its two complementary parts, Jean Rouaud and Nathalie Skowronek’s Writing Kit is a unique work that serves as both a practical exercise book and a literary essay.

• Jean Rouaud (1990 Goncourt Prize Winner ) and Nathalie Skowronek (writing workshop leader and university instructor of fiction writing) make the ideal duo to uncover the secrets of literary creation.