More Than Words: A Memoir of a Writing Life

by Jerry Apps

Overview

In this combination memoir and craft book, award-winning author Jerry Apps shares the next phase in his life story begun in Limping through Life and Once a Professor. Beginning with a boyhood surrounded by storytellers, Jerry takes readers along on his path to becoming one of the Midwest’s best-known and most revered writers. In characteristic no-nonsense style, he shares the joys, disappointments, and frustrations of the writing life and describes the genesis and creation of many of his best-known books. In recounting his nearly six-decade writing career, Jerry provides an insider’s view into the creative process, delving into sources for ideas, research strategies, and guidelines and essential tools for writing. Along the way he recalls his relationships with publishers, editors, TV producers, librarians, booksellers, and others and shares a scrapbook’s worth of stories—some funny, some heartwarming, a few of them harrowing—from the road. A book for book lovers!
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780870209970
Publisher:	Wisconsin Historical Society
Publication date:	11/22/2022
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	1,017,050
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Jerry Apps was born and raised on a central Wisconsin farm. Today he works as a rural historian, full-time writer, and creative writing instructor and is the author of more than fifty fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books. He is a former county extension agent and professor emeritus for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He and his wife, Ruth, divide their time between their home in Madison and their farm, Roshara, in Waushara County.
 

Table of Contents

Preface ix

1 Why a Writer? 1

2 First Professional Writing 7

3 The Land Still Lives 15

4 Barns of Wisconsin 23

5 Sources of Ideas 29

6 First Fiction 39

7 Breweries of Wisconsin 43

8 Full-time Writer 49

9 Essentials for Writing 55

10 Voice and Approach 67

11 A Low Point 73

12 Writing Memoirs 79

13 Writing History 85

14 More Research Strategies 95

15 Return to Fiction 101

16 Agents and Publishers 109

17 The Editing Process 119

18 Writing for Children and Young Adults 125

19 Teaching Writing 131

20 Columns, Blogs, and Online Writing 139

21 Book Talks 147

22 Stories from the Road 163

23 Social Media and Other Internet Adventures 173

24 Radio and Television 179

Epilogue: Awards and Rewards 191

Appendix: Published Books 199