Book Birthdays, Nebraska

Happy Book Birthday to Acetylene Torch Songs

Book Birthdays celebrate one year of a book’s life in social media posts, reviews, and more. This month we’re saying Happy First Book Birthday to Acetylene Torch Songs: Writing True Stories to Ignite the Soul (Nebraska, 2024) by Sue William Silverman.

About the Book:

At times writers—from the unpublished to jaded lifers—need a fire lit under them to pursue the complex work of self-exploration. Acetylene Torch Songs provides that spark for memoirists and essayists seeking mentor-based instruction and inspiration.

Drawing on twenty-five years of teaching and mentoring writers, Sue William Silverman stresses practice over theory. She encourages craftiness as well as craft and urges writers to embark on emotional quests in pursuit of their art. Acetylene Torch Songs uniquely illustrates how the writer’s imaginative spirit comes alive on the page through metaphor, literary masks, sensory memories, voice, obsessions, and more. This holistic approach to writing emphasizes how the creative process brings together the heart, mind, and senses to illuminate the human condition through language.

Reviews:

“Our obsessions haunt us, and writing helps us to contend with what Silverman calls our ‘shadowy ghosts,’ the darker aspects of ourselves. . . . These lessons and examples [in Acetylene Torch Songs] show how we can take what keeps us up at night and shape it into something that not only longer controls us, but can potentially help others to heal.”—Chanel Dubofsky, Lilith Magazine

“Like a torch in the darkness, Silverman’s advice to writers ‘brings together the heart, mind, and senses to illuminate the human condition.'”—Dinty W. Moore, Brevity Blog

“Acetylene Torch Songs reminded me of why I write and motivated me to rebirth some of the more confessional pieces I’d shelved. It made me not just want to be a better writer, but to do the kind of soul work that creates ‘writing that burns through, no matter what it finds.’”—Lisa Cooper Ellison, Hippocampus Magazine

“Through instruction and inspiration, this book demonstrates the intersection of creativity, craft, and courage needed to write creative nonfiction.”—Poets & Writers

“I’ve read a fair amount of creative nonfiction craft books, recommended many of them, and taught many of them, but none have felt so much like a craft class as Sue William Silverman’s Acetylene Torch Songs.”—Whitney (Walters) Jacobson, Split Rock Review

Awards

2024 Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY Awards) silver medal in Writing/Publishing category.

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