Tonal Variations

In the three years I've been doing this Frontlist/Backlist column, I haven't included writing advice books. But, for this issue at the start of a new year with a theme of finding the writing advice you need for your success, it seems fitting to include two writing guides that, while having overlapping ideas, are entirely different in tone. One may speak to you more than the other, and that's exactly the point.

- BY AMY JONES

Frontlist

Writing Creativity and Soul by Sue Monk Kidd

(Knopf, writing inspiration/memoir, October 2025)

SYNOPSIS: Like many successful writers, Sue Monk Kidd didn't have a straight path to that success. As a child in the 1950s and '60s, Kidd was brought up in Georgia during a time when girls were told they could be teachers, secretaries, nurses, and mothers, but not much else. In Writing Creativity and Soul, Kidd details the calling she's had to be a writer since the time she was a child, the detours her life took, and how she finally made the life-altering decision to defy expectations and become a professional writer.

In addition to sharing pivotal moments in her writing life, she also shares process stories about how her books came to be, what has kept her motivated, and philosophical explorations about writing rituals, places, and advice.