The Soul of Place
A Creative Writing Workbook: Ideas and Exercises for Conjuring the Genius Loci
In this extraordinary creative writing textbook, novelist and poet Linda Lappin presents a unique series of exercises to help writers of all genres — poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, memoir, and literary travel writing — discover inspiration in the soul of places they love. By entering into contact with the soul of a place, writers may access an inexhaustible source of creative power.
The exercises in this book are drawn from varied fields: architecture, portraiture, cuisine, wine tasting, literature, literary criticism, geography, Jungian psychology, fairy tales, mythology, botany, anthropology, theater, comparative religion, occult philosophy, metaphysics. Originally developed for seminars Lappin teaches for adults, these exercises have also been adapted to younger writers in undergraduate writing programs. In simple language, she has adopted concepts from the Romantic poets, French Symbolists, and English modernists to help all writers enrich their understanding of place.
Tennessee-born Linda Lappin, novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer, is the author of three novels, The Etruscan (Wynkin de Worde, 2004), Katherine’s Wish (Wordcraft of Oregon, 2008) and Signatures in Stone: A Bomarzo Mystery (Pleasure Boat Studio, 2013), winner of the 2014 Daphne Du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery and Suspense Writing. Upcoming projects include a memoir, Postcards from a Tuscan Interior, sections of which won a Solas Award from Travelers’ Tales, and Missing Madonna in Montparnasse, a novel about the life of Jeanne Hébuterne. She holds an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop and is a member of the Associated Writing Programs (AWP) and of the European Association for Creative Writing Programs (EACWP). She lives in Rome.
