Write for Your Life

By: Anna Quindlen

Narrated by: Anna Quindlen

Length: 3 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In this clarion call to pick up a pen and find yourself from “one of our most astute chroniclers of modern life” (The New York Times Book Review), #1 New York Times bestselling author Anna Quindlen shows us how anyone can write, and why everyone should.

What really matters in life? What truly lasts in our hearts and minds? Where can we find community, history, humanity? In this lyrical new book, the answer is clear: through writing. This is a book for what Quindlen calls “civilians,” those who want to use the written word to become more human, more themselves.

Write for Your Life argues that there has never been a more important time to stop and record what we are thinking and feeling. Using examples from past, present, and future—from Anne Frank to Toni Morrison, from love letters written after World War II to journal reflections from nurses and doctors today—Write for Your Life vividly illuminates the ways in which writing connects us to ourselves and to those we cherish. Drawing on her personal experiences not just as a writer but as a mother and daughter, Quindlen makes the case that recording our daily lives in writing is essential.

When we write we not only look, we see; we not only react but reflect. Writing gives you something to hold onto in a changing world. “To write the present,” Quindlen says, “is to believe in the future.”

©2022 Anna Quindlen (P)2022 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Bestselling author and journalist Anna Quindlen knows the importance of the written word, and the recording of experiences. Her casual yet persuasive performance is a call to action for anyone who thinks their life stories aren't worth sharing.... Quindlen's observations and encouraging tone may spark listeners to set memories to words." (AudioFile)

An inspiring telling

if you've ever thought about writing your story, a story, or someone else's story and hesitated because you don't consider yourself a writer...this book will change your mind.

Anything but ordinary…

Anna’s passion for storytelling and her encouragement for others to share the ordinary, every day musings of a life in vivid creative ways, encourages me to continue to daydream, muse, and commit my thoughts and feelings to history be it paper or pixel. Her encouragement is infectious in her reading of her book. You will be gifted a master class with a creative writing teacher that we all needed, yet rarely encountered in school. I highly recommend this book for anyone who has a desire to be creative through the power of prose. I found this book inspiring. For those who may feel writing is too hard or seem to feel stuck, her encouragement to look past perfection, sharing her processes and others, while peering behind the publishable page, definitely opened my mind to begin again and focus on my own, unique, inner voice and see the value it can bring myself and others with the passage of time. Thank you. This book is a gift which I will continue to unwrap. This book would make a wonderful gift, paired with a blank journal, to anyone who has an interest in writing. 💕👊🏼

My admiration continues.

I am a writer. I started out as a journalist admiring AQ’s “Life in the 30s” columns in the NYT and later the “Out Loud” compilations. Her writing voice has always spoken to me. Now here her actual voice was speaking to me!

She mentions that she responds to reader letters with hand-written notes. I was the lucky recipient of one of those notes more than 20 years ago. I still have it, in a frame, safe and preserved perfectly.

I have listened to this book twice and will probably do so again soon. She’s done the whole bit as a writer - journalism, columns, news commentary, fiction and non-fiction books. She is still my touchstone professionally. I’ve finally been successful in moving away from management roles and toward full-time writing. Though I still do a lot of business writing, I’ve also had some essays published (more personal reflections) and am a fiction writer for a content service now. Flexing those muscles as she has.

This is a terrific and heartfelt appeal for us to share ourselves through writing and well worth a listen.