How To Write a Novel in 20 Pies is a guide for aspiring and current writers for writing and life, collected and presented by writing coach Amy Wallen. Released 18th Oct 2022 by Andrews McMeel, it's 240 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formats.
The author/educator (she is that, both published as an author and experienced as a facilitator and leader-of-workshops) is humorous and compassionate. She gets it. The premise of this book could have been absolutely stultifying; do this - then that - then that other thing (/monotone in a bullet point list)... This is emphatically not that; not even to the smallest degree. She uses her own experiences to guide readers through the process from beginning practice to actually sticking through the process. Unusually for writing workshops in my somewhat limited experience, she is -genuinely- funny. Just the first chapter elicited a few chuckles along with the insightful and practical information dense instruction.
The art and illustrations by Emil Wilson are quirky and humorous and suit the text very well. Additionally, there's pie. I was admittedly skeptical of the whole pie-as-writing metaphor, but in this case, I freely admit to being wrong.
It's full of useful information: how to train up writing endurance, how to (maybe) find inspiration, what to write about, how to find a group and how to support and help one another, etc. In short, the sort of things one would expect to learn in a writing workshop. It also contains actual, mostly sensible, recipes for literal pie: chicken pot pie, everything pie (leftover pie), mushroom pie, lemon meringue, etc.
I can't honestly say how well the pie recipes work since I didn't try any, but the writing parts of the book are useful and accessible.
Four and a half stars.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
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