from Writer's Almanac (Garrison Keillor, Minnesota Public Radio):
October 7 is the birthday of journalist, nonfiction author, and writing teacher William Zinsser, born in New York City in 1922. He's written several books, including a couple of memoirs and books about travel, jazz, and baseball. His best-known work is On Writing Well (1976). In it he advocates a clean, spare style: "Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills, and meaningless jargon."
He has a bit of advice for would-be authors of memoir: "Be yourself and your readers will follow you anywhere. Try to commit an act of writing and they will jump overboard to get away."
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