Natalie Goldberg
Natalie Goldberg would like to welcome you
to her official web site.
New Book Writing on Empty comes out July 9, 2024!
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Praise for Writing on Empty
“Natalie Goldberg is a sensualist. She lives life deeply; sight and sound, taste and smell. She takes the reader on a felt journey, exploring the odd corners of her mind and their own. Writing on Empty reveals a life richly led—it invites the reader within us all to explore and expand their particular human experience.”
—Julia Cameron, New York Times bestselling author of The Artist’s Way
“At some point or another, nearly all writers suffer a spell when the aquifer of inspiration runs dry. With Writing On Empty, Natalie Goldberg has written a sagacious and at times surprisingly funny memoir about her own dry spell—a chronicle that will also serve as an elegant instruction manual for others on how to write through the inevitable desolate patches to rekindle the banked fires of creativity.”
—Hampton Sides, bestselling author of Ghost Soldiers and Blood and Thunder
“No one brings us face to face with the reality of our lives quite like Natalie Goldberg. Our ordinary days, our loved ones, our ancestries, our frailties and gifts, our longings and the possibilities for fulfillment in the very ordinariness of each moment – all this, the whole gamut, Natalie makes us see and taste as the reality of our lives, as what we have, and what we are. And in the midst of it all, she shows us the fertility on offer, and helps us turn to lives of creativity and meaning, where we might least expect it. This is true wisdom, and Natalie’s true and remarkable gift. It’s all here, the tangles of life, the beauty, suffering and hope – and new ways of opening to them, pen in hand. A must-read for anybody seeking to reconnect with their deeper life.”
—Henry Shukman, author of Original Love and One Blade of Grass
AVAILABLE NOW
A Bookseller at Harvard Bookstore:
“Natalie Goldberg’s 1986 classic guide on creating a writing practice has inspired beginning and seasoned writers for decades. All types of writers will find something useful in these brand new lessons that are guaranteed to get your pen moving. Pairs well with the original book for a thoughtful gift for every beginning writer, and long-time fans of Goldberg will love the fresh lessons. I’ve been getting it for all of my writer friends, and love drawing a card at random to find a spark of inspiration to get outside my comfort zone.”
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WINNER – Shelf Awareness: Best books of 2021
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Each book Natalie Goldberg writes builds on the one before. Writing Down the Bones, her first, gave amateurs ample leeway to doodle, explore and dream on the page. In that book’s chapter “A Sensation of Space,” Goldberg cites haiku from Shiki, Issa, Buson and Basho. Those four send her on the title pilgrimage of Three Simple Lines. This book brings her body of work full circle–her Zen practice, her writing practice and the ways in which each enhances the other. It’s a tribute to her teachers, her students and to Allen Ginsberg, who introduced her to these Japanese haiku masters. Some chapters are only four pages long; all leave readers with big ideas to digest. Goldberg demonstrates the fluidity between teacher and student, the desire to share knowledge and the willingness to learn. She closes the book with six rules of haiku penned by one of her students, and sends readers on their way. –Jennifer M. Brown, senior editor, Shelf Awareness
