Take a peek at my updated Don't Sweat the Essay website, with three new testimonials, the Martha's Vineyard Common App Essay Workshop (July 2014), and my free book offer when you sign up with me for the Common Application essay and the supplements. The book is Constance Hale's celebrated Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wicked Good Prose.
Why Sin and Syntax? And what am I up to? Good questions. I'll let Constance Hall, Wired magazine's copy editor and the author of the book, begin to answer them: "I didn't intend my books to be textbooks - I think of them as cheeky guides to writing. Maybe that's why students like them! I've been thrilled to learn that they are used by teachers eager to infuse their wards with a love of language as well as a love of getting things right."
My answer? Sin and Syntax is an unusually fun, readable and effective book about good writing - covering everything from word choice to the melody of language - that's been called "the hippest grammar book ever written." My background as a novelist, journalist, editor, and university professor of writing means that I take the long view. I want to help you write the effective essays that will show colleges who you are, and I want to teach you a few writing - and thinking - techniques that will last long after you're done writing your application essays. When you work with me on your essays, dipping into Sin and Syntax will help you make those essays better and better. And it will improve the other writing - and reading - you do in high school, college and beyond.
As a writer and reader, I support independent bookstores, and am purchasing copies of Sin and Syntax from one of Manhattan's few remaining independent bookstores, The Corner Bookstore, which will mail you your copy of Sin and Syntax once you sign up and make the first payment.
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