What It Is

This life enhancing activity toybox of a book does not merely instruct, it transcends, uplifts, jumps levels, like a good fairy tale. Follow Lynda Barry's breadcrumb trail through the tangled forest of Creativity to uncover your own treasure chest of images, stories, and creative insights. This book is Lynda Barry's Gingerbread Cottage---with full instructions on how to bake and decorate your own. Five stars? Not nearly enough!

Lynda Barry is such an inspiration and all her publications are moving, hysterical, intense and inspiring. Her latest, "What It Is" is no exception. Through pages of wild collage, drawings, and her signature comic style Lynda guides us through a wild journey of creation. She asks us all to step out of the usual boxes we put ourselves in and try new ways of writing and creating. The main focus of the book is writing, but I find it visually so stimulating that I immediately want to go make some art after looking at it. It's a really fun book full of many invitations to play. I think it would be great for any creative person who is feeling stuck!

This is an amazing book. I have had the privilege of studying writing with Lynda Barry and all her encouragement, her insight, her quirky humor and unique exercises are right in this book. It is part comic, part collage, and part writing workshop. No other writing book takes the same creative approach or challenges our tired assumptions in the same liberating way. Every page delights with both art and heart. Buy it, treasure it, spend long afternoons examining and playing. Not a moment will be wasted.

This is the essence of the creative writing course Lynda Barry gives around the country these days. It conveys the course stuff beautifully, AND is a work of art in its own right. Not a rehash of her other books in any way, it just worms its way into your mind.

Every page is beautiful, every page contains insights into creativity, every page is just plain fun (or just scary fun), and it has everything you need to apply the writing method Lynda uses in your own work.

You really can write out of your own memories, and come up with something that isn't drivel. Get the book and try it. And join Lynda in tipping your hat to Marilyn Frasca, who originated the method.

Have you ever needed jumper cables to revive your creative process? This book is essentially just that.
I have long been a Lynda Barry fan, but this is what a sense will be an essential reference book for any creative type. It bores down into just what makes one want to create and suggests exercises and steps to get whatever festers inside you out.
To say that it has prompted me to fine tune my and understand my writing in much more depth would be an understatement. It also has gotten my to pick up my pencil and draw/sketch for the 1st time in over 15 years.
I am pretty sure i will be constantly reading and rereading this as i further hone the creation craft.
if you crave creation in any form, this book is a must.