Here is a brief excerpt from an article written by Dan Barry for The New York Times. In it, he discusses arguably the best source of insights, information, and counsel on how to write effectively. William Zinsser is the author of On Writing Well. Until last year, he was a contributing editor at The American Scholar. His column, “Zinsser on Friday,” focused on the craft of writing, popular culture, and the arts. His column recently won The National Magazine Award for digital commentary and has now been published as a book, The Writer Who Stayed. In my opinion, Zinsser also ranks with George Orwell and E.B. White as one of the modern masters of the essay. At age 90, he continues to practice what he preaches.
Photo Credit: Damon Winter/The New York Times
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The written word looms over William Zinsser. The many hundreds of books in his Upper East Side apartment stand at attention, as if awaiting instruction from this slight man in a baseball cap and sunglasses who, for a half-century, has coached others on how to write.
In newsrooms, publishing houses and wherever the labor centers on honing sentences and paragraphs, you are almost certain to find among the reference works a classic guide to nonfiction writing called On Writing Well, by Mr. Zinsser. Sometimes all you have to say is: Hand me the Zinsser.
“Clutter is the disease of American writing,” he declared in one passage that tends to haunt anyone daring to write about Mr. Zinsser. “We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon.”
The book, first published in 1976, grew out of a writing course that Mr. Zinsser taught for several years at Yale University. And he is still teaching at 90, holding one-on-one counseling sessions for accomplished and aspiring writers at a round wooden table close to those bookshelves. The only difference is that he can no longer see.
So he listens. Sitting with elbows propped and hands clenched, and with the sunglasses and cap protecting eyes damaged by glaucoma, he listens as students read their drafts and fret over narrative.
“People read with their ears, whether they know it or not,” Mr. Zinsser says.
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To read the complete article, please click here.