Crash Course: Essays From Where Writing and Life Collide in Bloomington, MN

Robin Black's path through loss and survival delivered her to the writer's life. Agoraphobia, the challenges of parenting a child with special needs, and the legacy of a formidable father all shaped that journey. In these deeply personal and instructive essays, the author of the internationally acclaimed
If I loved you, I would tell you this
and
Life Drawing
explores the making of art through the experiences of building a life. Engaging, challenging, and moving,
Crash Course
is full of insight into how to write--and why.
From "Autumn, 1972, A Moment at Which I Became a Writer":
I sense, even now, the reverberations of a kind of shattering of my foundation and a quick rebuild, a change at a molecular level of who I understood myself to be. No longer someone who could look at another person without wondering what their life was like, but someone with a new curiosity about what people's stories might actually be.
Robin Black
is the author of the story collection,
and the novel
, both critically acclaimed, and both published in multiple languages. She has developed a loyal, enthusiastic following for her essays on life and writing, online and in such publications as the
New York Times
, the
Chicago Tribune
, and
O Magazine
. She lives with her husband in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where the house is always open for their three grown children.