For Those About to Write: How I Learned to Love Books and Why I Had to Write Them.

Emily Walters Gregor is a graduate student in 20th-century American
literature and an ESL writing tutor at the University of Minnesota.

Bidini combines memoir of his own youthful writing experiences with advice for young writers on beginning their careers as authors.

Through personal vignettes, the book outlines the author’s experience with a number of different types of professional writing, from local newspapers to novels. Bidini describes his first publication—a poem about hockey player Eddie Shack—with embarrassment and fondness; his experience writing for a youth newspaper as a teenager; and the authors and works that inspire him.

For young writers who yearn to see their name in print, the author’s casual, personal, and encouraging perspective offers to these hopefuls the kind of mentoring and insider information that they might otherwise struggle to find and which should help them develop a realistic perspective of the challenges and rewards of the writing life.

This book is best for those young writers who hope to identify a kindred spirit and should not be mistaken for a guidebook for early publication. It nonetheless provides a source of encouragement and inspiration that respects the aspiration and talent of young writers. Recommended.