Book cover for Break, Blow, Burn, and Make: A Writer's Thoughts on Creation by E. Lily Yu

Break, Blow, Burn, and Make

A Writer's Thoughts on Creation

2024 Released
240 Pages
3-4 Hours
★ 4.68 37 ratings
Audiobook Unavailable
Paperback Unavailable
ApiaryISBN 9781546005513

From the award-winning author of On Fragile Waves comes an inspirational, surprising guide to creation and creativity, and how both bring us closer to God.
 
Centuries ago, sound theology and good fiction were friends and not strangers. Decades ago, authors strove not for self-expression and self-disclosure but for a mastery of craft and language and books that transformed the reader with wisdom and love. In more recent years, the old ideals have been exchanged for lesser ones.
 
Few guides to writing, which tend to focus on mechanics, point of view, and plot, address the more important matters of meaning, depth, and heart. But it is the latter qualities that make a book a blessing and gift to both writer and reader. Like Christ’s invitation to follow, they demand a risk and sacrifice of the self and all it holds dear. Writers from George MacDonald to James Baldwin understood this, but in recent years this understanding has been lost. Making old things new, this book proposes an ethics of reading, writing, and living based on truth and love.
 
Break, Blow, Burn, & Make returns the literary conversation to the practices of co-creation with God. Part bugle call, part compass for writing and for life, and part love song to the books that set us on fire, it offers those who are willing to receive it the courage to live, read, and write more deeply and honestly.
 

E. Lily Yu

E. Lily Yu is the Washington State Book Award and Artist Trust LaSalle Storyteller Award-winning author of On Fragile Waves, Jewel Box: Stories, and Break, Blow, Burn & Make. A recipient of the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, she was a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize, the World Fantasy Award, and the Washington State Book Award. Her stories have appeared in venues from McSweeney's to Tor.com, as well as thirteen best-of-the-year anthologies, and have been finalists for the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Sturgeon, and World Fantasy Awards. She lives in the Pacific Northwest and can be found online at elilyyu.com.

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