Snoopy's Guide to the Writing Life - Tapa dura

Snoopy sits atop his doghouse, banging out stories on a manual typewriter: Usually they begin "It was a dark and stormy night." Always they're rejected. In Snoopy's Guide to the Writing Life, a roundup of thirty famous writers and entertainers respond in short, 500-word essays to a favourite strip. Each essay focuses on how the strip presents an aspect of writing life - getting started, getting rejected, searching for new ideas - that they have experienced. The essays are light and humorous, but also offer insight and inspiration to writers working at any level. Contributors include Elmore Leonard, Sue Grafton, Jackie Collins, John Cleese, William Buckley, Danielle Steele, and Jonathan Winters. An introduction by Monte Schulz addresses the writing life and how Snoopy's experience - his tenacity and resilience - can inspire us all.

Monte Schulz is the son of "Peanuts" creator Charles Schulz. Barnaby Conrad is a fiction and nonfiction writer, and he runs the Santa Barbara Writer's Conference where Charles Schulz spoke for more than 20 years.