{"product_id":"danger-man-working-writing-from-the-heart-the-gut-and-the-poison-ivy-patch-9780870208409","title":"Danger, Man Working: Writing from the Heart, the Gut, and the Poison Ivy Patch","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"Every writer has advice for aspiring writers. Mine is predicated on formative years spent cleaning my father's calf pens: Just keep shoveling until you've got a pile so big, someone has to notice. The fact that I cast my life's work as slung manure simply proves that I recognize an apt metaphor when I accidentally stick it with a pitchfork. . . . Poetry was my first love, my gateway drug--still the poets are my favorites--but I quickly realized I lacked the chops or insights to survive on verse alone. But I wanted to write. Every day. And so I read everything I could about freelancing, and started shoveling.\" \u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e The pieces gathered within this book draw on fifteen years of what Michael Perry calls \"shovel time\"--a writer going to work as the work is offered. The range of subjects is wide, from musky fishing, puking, and mountain-climbing Iraq War veterans to the frozen head of Ted Williams. Some assignments lead to self-examination of an alarming magnitude (as Perry notes, \"It quickly becomes obvious that I am a self-absorbed hypochondriac forever resolving to do better nutritionally and fitness-wise but my follow-through is laughable.\") But his favorites are those that allow him to turn the lens outward: \"My greatest privilege,\" he says, \"lies not in telling my own story; it lies in being trusted to tell the story of another.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Wisconsin Historical Society Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 08\/15\/2017\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780870208409\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 240\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.65lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.25h x 5.50w x 0.60d","brand":"Michael Perry","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45302221930677,"sku":"9780870208409","price":16.11,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/files\/img_ccabc8c5-1116-4a85-9e51-876c376ee26a.jpg?v=1744724705","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/danger-man-working-writing-from-the-heart-the-gut-and-the-poison-ivy-patch-9780870208409","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}