Toxic Feedback: Helping Writers Survive and Thrive, Revised and Expanded Edition

by Joni B. Cole

From veteran teacher and acclaimed author Joni B. Cole comes a revised and expanded edition of her popular writing guide Toxic Feedback . Successful writers know that feedback is often the difference between writing and not writing, and between writing and writing well. But feedback mismanaged is more likely to leave the writer confused, intimidated, or even deflated. This book not only detoxifies the feedback process with humor, but it also shows writers and feedback providers how to make the most of this powerful resource at every stage of the writing and publishing process. This new edition includes a second preface, four new chapters, updates throughout the original material, and several additional exercises. Cole also includes new and previous interviews with authors such as Khaled Hosseini, Juan Morales, Grace Paley, Jodi Picoult, and Matthew Salesses. Toxic Feedback remains essential reading for all writers, critique groups, MFA programs, and teachers of writing at every level.

Genres: Nonfiction

264 pages, Paperback

Published May 16, 2023

About the author

Joni B. Cole is the author of the new release Good Naked: Reflections on How to Write More, Write Better, and Be Happier ("Joyful, tough-minded, and heartening, these pages offer encouragement to anyone from beginners to experienced writers. Good Naked is one of the best books for writers I’ve read in a very long time."—Cynthia Huntington, National Book Award Finalist, poetry). Joni's acclaimed first book on writing, Toxic Feedback: Helping Writers Survive and Thrive, is “strongly recommended” for students and teachers by Library Journal. (“I can’t imagine a better guide to [writing’s] rewards and perils than this fine book,” American Book Review.) Joni is also the author of Another Bad-Dog Book: Essays on Life, Love, and Neurotic Human Behavior, and a contributor to The Writer magazine. She serves on the faculty of the New Hampshire Institute of Art, teaches in the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program at Dartmouth College, and is founder of the Writer’s Center of White River Junction, Vermont. Joni has been nominated for both a Pushcart Prize and USA Fellowship Award. For more information: jonibcole.com

Reviews

[Sharon Wishnow · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lot has been written about the craft of writing, but not much about the realities of writing. Joni Cole's revised and expanded Toxic Feedback fills a need in the latter. Her connected essays on feedback, infused with the thoughts of well-known authors, has something for all writers no matter where they are in their careers. Cole covers a variety of feedback scenarios including, editors, agents, teachers, and writing groups. The first part of the book speaks to the established writer grappling with pages, deadlines, and pressure. Later chapters discuss the usefulness and pitfalls of working with writing groups and partners. The final section serves as a blueprint for how to run a critique group or workshop. Throughout, she stresses the importance of kindness. Her essays speak the truth with much humor. I found myself shaking my head in agreement as I remembered both good and toxic feedback experiences. Writers share commonalities of ego vs imposter syndrome. Feedback is necessary but it doesn't have to be evil.

[Lisa Olney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Toxic Feedback should be required reading for teachers.

Toxic Feedback is an invaluable tool for writers (seasoned and beginner), but is a must read for teachers at ALL levels of writing. If I could, I would gift Toxic Feedback to every teacher I know, from middle school to graduate school. In fact, it should be listed on every graduate program syllabus in teaching and writing.

We’ve all had that teacher who dashed our writing dreams with red ink. But if we were lucky, a compassionate teacher came along and mended our confidence with useful feedback that made us want to polish our rough piece into a shining gem. Toxic Feedback is a lesson in how to be that teacher. Feedback is a powerful tool and Joni shows us to harness that power for good.

For writers, Toxic Feedback teaches us how to take feedback and use it when—and if—it is useful in moving our writing forward. It teaches writers to listen in a way that is beneficial, not destructive to our writing process.

Joni’s thoughts on feedback are useful in our everyday lives. We should all think about how we give and receive feedback in all things we do, and this book reminds us how.

[Rex Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a thoughtful and humorous book about how writers can help other writers with feedback and critique rooted in empathy and truth. The lessons imparted also have wider applicability to improving communication in general.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of anecdotes about the writing life. I appreciate its focus on the value of positive feedback as well as negative.