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| Letters to a Young Artist: Building a Life in Art | 
 enlarge | Author: Julia Cameron
Publisher: Tarcher
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $0.88
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Avg. Customer Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 867930
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 176
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.8
ISBN: 1585424099
Dewey Decimal Number: 702.3
EAN: 9781585424092
ASIN: 1585424099
Publication Date: April 21, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: may have remainder mark Will ship within 24 hours if ordered Sun-Thur
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Product Description
In the tradition of Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, an original and inspiring work from the bestselling author of The Artist's Way.
Each month, Julia Cameron receives hundreds of letters and e-mails from people around the world who have read her classic work on developing creativity, The Artist's Way, and who long to engage in further dialogue with her.
This book provides Julia's thousands of admirers with just that intimacy and illumination. Written in the form of correspondence from a wise, more experienced artist to a young artist who is full of turbulent self-doubt, Letters to a Young Artist echoes the many conversations Cameron has with all of the artists whose lives she has touched with The Artist's Way.
In these haunting and eloquent letters, the writer answers questions that are central to the artist's journey: How do I know that I am truly an artist? How can I find encouragement? How can I keep moving despite my fear? A rare window into the heart of the creative process, Letters to a Young Artist is an inspiredvolume from this leading authority on creativity and art.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Encouragement November 6, 2007
The advice in this book is stellar. If you are a real artist, you will recognize your own voice, doubts and desires.
 julia is still julia--i recommend her heartily October 30, 2006
another distillation of the salient points of julia cameron's The Artist's Way, this is a good book for anyone who's not going to read any of the others. a primer of sorts, this rilke rip off is inspirational in it's "teachy" way...julia is still julia, and the poetry and accidental wisdom of the rilke "letters to a young poet" is far superior. still, they are two different things, books, texts and neither benefits from any confusing comparison.
cameron continues, predictably, to hold up the morning pages, artist's date and weekly walk as tenants of her faith. she continues to offer insight from her personal and professional experience. there is not much that is new here--but there is plenty of support in this book for her original teaching, which continues to be supportive of artists of all kinds in a kinds in her companionable way.
she supposes an actual correspondence with a penitent male artist--handling in her letters to him the issues of relationships vs. art, sex vs. art, talking about art vs. art, high art vs. making art, addiction vs. art, sobriety vs. art, slow and steady vs. indulgent moods and art making, etc. in her answers, which are all we, as readers, are privy too, she encapsulates the artist's way with a practiced expertise.
as i read all things cameron, i felt a bit of a let down for the lack of new revelations. i was annoyed with the whiny artist correspondent, and found him predictably arrogant, angry, indulgent and useless. i wished she had supposed a woman art maker--or a colleague or peer. but that is where the new possibilities lie, i suppose.
while tempted by the brilliance of rilke's original text, cameron strives to re-iterate her how-to knowledge in a form that disappoints. it seems a rote response to the questions one knows she's been asked a million times. it seems a surface diagnosis. it seems a skimming of the cliches of artmaking.
still, i love her. i read her every word. i collect each new encapsulation of the franchise and recommend her heartily.
 Letters Best Left Unwritten March 30, 2006
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I can hardly see the author (or her letter-writing character), perched on so high a post, talking down to the lowly young artist. "Letters to a Young Artist" may serve well to discourage if not batter the fledgling artist before he or she has even had a chance to find their own voice and style. Those less fledgling may simply toss it with some degree of disgust at the arrogance and cliche treatment of the artistic process. It's not so much that there isn't the occasional grain of truth in the advice given, as that the occasional grain is lost in its tone and cavalier treatment.
This collection of letters is too obviously constructed for a book and is not an authentic exchange with an authentic questioner. Indeed, author Julia Cameron makes it clear these letters are a hodge podge of those she says she receives from fans, a conglomerate of questions and wonderings, seeking guidance and inspiration.
"Dear X" is the salutation heading up this collection of fabricated letters. That alone rather puts one off as lacking in authenticity (or semblence of), abundant only in added chill. How much better to give a letter writer a name, a voice, a persona that would come alive for the book reader. More often than not, the letters begin with a weakly disguised "you write that..." as segue for the missing letter in the exchange. It would have been far more fascinating to have been able to read both sides to this conversation.
Cameron's style (she takes on the voice of an elderly male writer, which in itself lacks authenticity and leaves me wondering - why?) is brash and bullying. Her advice, what there is of it, is so obvious that it offers little value. Mostly, it reads like one long brag perhaps constructed only of hot air (only the dissatisfied are bullies?). Here and there, inexplicably interspersed with literary advice, is advice for the lovelorn. Again, why?
This effort pales in comparison to similar efforts to offer beginning writers a hand up, done brilliantly, and I suggest those searching for such will find much more satisfaction, advice, and encouragement in Annie Dillard's "The Writing Life," Rainer Marie Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet," Joyce Carol Oates' "The Faith of a Writer," Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird," Stephen King's "On Writing," or a long list of others.
 Superb In It's Simplicity January 27, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This little book is wonderful. It's tone isn't especially coddling (though if you are familiar with the Author's work, that should be no surprise), though it is plenty gentle, and actually quite replete with encouragement. It is the perfect summarization of what Cameron has presented us with over the years, and an excellent reminder that our climb up one hill inevitably brings us to the foot of another, that the reward for living our truth is indeed in the journey itself. A fantastic treat.
 Terrible December 15, 2005
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
This writer (I'd never even heard of her) belittles and demoralizes her imaginary correspondant to the point that any useful or inspiring energy is lost (if it's there at all, it's hard to tell). I pray no actual student of writing or art ever has this woman as a teacher. Cameron is interested in Cameron, asserting her aggressive will, shoving her hideous personality down the reader's throat. She sounds like one of these barking dogs from a cable news debate.
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