Barbara Baig is a writer who has dedicated much of her life to teaching writing. She loves to write, and she loves to pass on what she has learned to others. She has nearly thirty years of teaching experience—including two decades of leading writing workshops at The Divinity School at Harvard University. She now teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Lesley University, online here at www.wherewriterslearn.com, and privately.
Barbara has lots of writing experience, having produced stories, poems, articles, radio scripts for the NPR award-winning show Sound & Spirit, award-winning songs, and a wide variety of promotional materials, including content for websites. She is the author of How To Be a Writer: building your creative skills through practice and play.
Barbara considers herself a “maverick educator,” who developed her own skills-based approach to teaching writing after becoming frustrated with the way writing is typically taught within the academic world. She says, “I am fascinated by how people learn, so I have spent a lot of time and energy trying to get inside the minds of people who want or have to write so I can teach them the skills they need. I focus on what it is that skilled writers actually do, rather than on the text they produce, and then I try to find ways to show beginning and confused writers how to learn those skills in the way humans most naturally learn: through practice.”
Barbara still spends most of her time writing, reading, and thinking about new ways to teach. For entertainment, Barbara follows the Red Sox.
To learn more about Barbara and her workshops, visit www.barbarabaig.com.
Barbara is a member of The Author's Guild.
This is a wise, humane and practical book for anyone who wants to write; it guides the novice and re-awakens the veteran to processes and practices which can bring out the best writing in all of us.
—Emma Darwin, author of A Secret Alchemy, www.emmadarwin.com
How To Be a Writer is the writing coach you always wanted but never knew how to find. Distilling thirty years of writing and teaching, author Barbara Baig serves up substance and support in her own sparkling prose. Any writer in search of encouragement and inspiration needs only one notebook, one pen, and a copy of this book.
—Kate Whouley, author of Cottage for Sale, Must Be Moved
If you are a writer in search of your unique voice, creative authority, and natural way with words, make How To Be a Writer the first book you read. Aspiring communicators in any genre will benefit from Barbara's sound, timeless advice on the importance of skill-building, learning by doing, and making the most of the frustration certain to arise along the way. You'll walk away with a more complete understanding of how successful writing happens and how you can tap into your own innate writing ability.
—Christina Katz, Author of Get Known Before the Book Deal and Writer Mama, www.christinakatz.com
Barbara Baig is not afraid to go back to the basics, and in doing so, illuminates the writing process for both beginners and seasoned professionals. Her approach to writing as ‘practice and play’ makes good sense—and yet we've never heard it before. In strong, clear, humorous prose, Barbara teaches writers skills they can use right away to start making the writing process their own. I have used her ideas with my graduate and undergraduate students with great success, and her approach helped me reconnect with the writing process in a way I'd never learned before. Barbara's approach builds confidence because it's about doing. If you buy only one writing book, buy this one—it'll give you all the tools you need for your journey!
—Janet Pocorobba, Assistant Professor and Coordinator, Lesley University MFA Program in Creative Writing
For anyone who worries that writers are born, not made, nothing is more terrifying than a blank page waiting to be filled. Barbara Baig takes the mystery out of the process and shows that, with a little practice and an open mind, good writing can come to anyone.
—Jumana Farouky, former student, now Associate Editor, TIME magazine
Barbara Baig’s passion for teaching writing infuses every lesson she offers. She demystifies the most complex writing techniques and makes them accessible to all writers. Her courses have been the most valuable learning experience of my MFA in Creative Writing. I cannot wait to buy a book which distills her knowledge and provides her writing exercises.
—Lisa Robinson, M.D., Child Psychiatrist in private practice, Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School
Barbara is a wonderful and inspiring writing teacher, offering clear and helpful suggestions and enthusiastic support! Her techniques made me a better writer and a more confident minister, and will serve me well in this next phase of my life.
—Liz Walker, M.Div., host of Better Living on WCVB Television and former news anchor for CBS4 (WBZ-TV, Boston)
I have been writing stories for children for many years and wrote many memoranda and briefs during my career as an attorney, but I didn't grasp the craft involved in creating powerful sentences until I took Barbara Baig's The Art of the Sentence course through the Lesley University MFA in Creative Writing Program. Barbara approached language not as a grammarian might, but as a writer must: as the stuff that we must master if we are to succeed in conveying our ideas and images to our readers. The class has been invaluable to my growth as a writer. I know that any guide to writing that Barbara authors will be a welcome and well thumbed addition to my bookshelf.
—Laurie A. Jacobs, author, A Box of Candles, Winner of the 2005 National Jewish Book Award for Family Literature,—www.lauriejacobs.com
Barbara Baig is that rare writing teacher who has a great deal to offer experienced writers as well as those new to the craft. She inspires students and gives them the tools to hone their craft-no matter what level they begin on. Barbara's given me a new way to think about writing as well as smart techniques for improving my craft and my voice. I use what I learned from Barbara just about every day, and I'm a happier and smarter writer for it.
—Karen Rafinski, award-winning medical and science journalist
Barbara is a master of the art and science of teaching students how to communicate through writing. During her twenty years at HDS she has guided hundreds of students through the process of learning to write, showing them how to take existing research and their own thoughts and integrate the two on paper.
—Susan Beth Dunton, former Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, Harvard Divinity School