A Mollusk Without a Shell: Essays on Self-Care for Writers

by Julie Brooks Barbour (Editor), Mary Biddinger (editor)

91 pages, Paperback

Published March 19, 2024

About the author

​​Julie Brooks Barbour’s most recent poetry collection is Haunted City (Kelsay Books). A collection of essays co-edited with Mary Biddinger, A Mollusk Without a Shell: Essays on Self-Care for Writers, is forthcoming from The University of Akron Press in 2024. Her work has appeared in South Dakota Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Whale Road Review, Escape Into Life, Moon City Review, Gone Lawn, Menacing Hedge, and Allium, A Journal of Poetry and Prose.

Reviews

[Cheyenne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a nice little collection of bite-sized essays on self-care, specifically for writers. It seems to be particularly influenced by COVID; this isn't the main focus of the essays, but it seems to have made many reconsider their self-care habits, so it comes up a lot. I wouldn't say that I learned much new information from this, but it was good for reminding/inspiring me to protect my writing time as well as my outdoors/nature time (which is almost the same thing) and to try to stay off the internet. Given that it only takes an hour or so to read the whole book, it might be a good thing to just keep around and read one of the essays for a ten-minute tune-up when you're feeling particularly stressed or uninspired.

[BooksWGreen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 rounded down because some of the advice was still very generic while a few others just aren’t for me via demographic, which I’m alright with! I would still recommend it to any writers struggling to find self care, but I’d probably pick one or two for them to read rather than the whole thing.