Alistair Fox presents a theory of literary and cinematic representation through the lens of neurological and cognitive science in order to understand the origins of storytelling and our desire for fictional worlds. Fox contends that fiction is deeply shaped by emotions and the human capacity for metaphorical thought. Literary and moving images bridge emotional response with the cognitive side of the brain. In a radical move to link the neurosciences with psychoanalysis, Fox foregrounds the interpretive experience as a way to reach personal emotional equilibrium by working through autobiographical issues within a fictive form.

Product Description: Rewriting Homeless Identity: Writing as Coping in an Urban Homeless Community focuses on the identities of homeless writers, with initially limited or no specialized training in writing, at a homeless community church. Through an ethnographic, two-year study, author Jeremy Godfrey hosted and participated in weekly writing workshops...read more

Product Description: This collection traces the intersection between writing and intoxication, from the literary to the theoretical, exploring a diversity of experiences of excess. Comprising a variety of perspectives, this book offers unique insights into how politics and literature have been shaped by states of intoxication...read more

Product Description: This book explores how the creations of great authors result from the same operations as our everyday counterfactual and hypothetical imaginations, which cognitive scientists refer to as "simulations." Drawing on detailed literary analyses as well as recent research in neuroscience and related fields, Patrick Colm Hogan develops a rigorous theory of the principles governing simulation that goes beyond any existing framework...read more

Product Description: Whether you’re aiming for a New York Times bestseller or a short personal essay to share with family and friends, a popular blogger and memoirist shows you the way in this witty writing guide and disarmingly candid account of discovering her own voice...read more

Product Description: Our lives may be determined less by past events than by the way we remember them. How do we learn to listen more to the stories that heal? How do we put together the pieces of our past? How can we rewrite our life story so that pain becomes meaningful and actually promotes growth and transformation? Heal Your Self with Writing offers a step-by-step journey of discovery and re-visioning through focused journaling, a practice that can enable healing and empowerment...read more

Product Description: The Affective Turn in writing studies, the author argues, has actually gone through two phases, or three, if one counts the expressionist work on "finding one's true voice" that he dubs Phase Zero. Phase One runs from Alice Glarden Brand through Sue McLeod, and contains mostly empirical studies of affect in the classroom; Phase Two begins with Lynn Worsham's "Going Postal" and contains mostly theoretical studies of viral ecologies of affect...read more

Product Description: Proposing that contemplation is an active practice that can take place anywhere, anytime--in the Volkswagen repair shop, at the Farmer's Market, at PetSmart--Brenda Miller and Holly J. Hughes share experiences that have helped them bring mindfulness and new avenues of expression into their writing...read more

Product Description: This book captures the diversity and richness of writing as it relates to different forms of abilities, skills, competencies, and expertise. Psychologists, educators, researchers, and practitioners in neighboring areas are interested in exploring how writing develops and in what manner this development can be fostered, but they lack a handy, unified, and comprehensive source of information to satisfy their interest...read more

Product Description: For thirty years the "death of the author" has been a familiar poststructuralist slogan in literary theory, widely understood and much debated as a dismissal of the author, a declaration of the writer's irrelevance to the readers experience...read more

Integrating practical instruction with inspiration and reflections, the author of Reviving Ophelia explains how to convey a meaningful message through one's writing, describing the various steps in the writing process--from brainstorming to publishing--as well as the various forms of advocacy writing and practical how-to-advice. Reprint.