The first comprehensive work on nonfiction as an art form • Shows how nonfiction, especially how-to and self-help, can take on the same power and luminosity as great fiction • Develops processes to reliably induce the dreaming state from which all writing comes • Teaches the skill of analogical thinking that is the core perceptual tool for writers • Explores the subtle techniques of powerful writing, from inducing associational dreaming in the reader, to language symmetry, sound patterning, foreshadowing, feeling flow, and more Approaching writing as a sacred art, Stephen Buhner explores the core of the craft: the communication of deep meaning that feeds not just the mind but also the soul of the reader. Tapping into the powerful archetypes within language, he shows how to enrich your writing by following “golden threads” of inspiration while understanding the crucial invisibles essential to the art of both fiction and nonfiction: how to craft language with feeling and vision, employ altered states of mind to access the writing trance, clear your work by recognizing the powerful sway of clichéd thinking and hidden baggage, and intentionally generate duende--that physical/emotional response to art that gives you chills, opens up unrecognized aspects of reality, or simply resonates in your soul. Covering some very practical aspects of writing such as layering and word symmetry, the author also explores the inner world of publishing--what you really will encounter when you become a writer. He then shows how to develop a powerful and engaging book proposal based on understanding the proposal as a work of fiction--the map is never the territory, nor is the proposal the book that it will become. This book, written using all the techniques discussed within it, offers a powerful, experiential journey into the heart of writing. It does for nonfiction what John Gardner’s books on writing did for fiction. It is one of the most significant works on writing published in our time. Provocation is Buhner’s mission in this unusually passionate and delving writer’s guide. The author of books about plants, healing, indigenous culture, and the environment, Buhner not only tackles the art of writing with conviction, vigor, expertise, and a touch of devilry but also outspokenly advocates for the maligned form of “genre nonfiction.” Who says a how-to book can’t be a work of literature? It’s what you bring to the subject and to the page that make a book vital and significant. A book about plumbing can be just as revelatory as a poem if the writer marshals her feelings, the wellspring of meaning. Buhner sagely covers technical matters and the pragmatic business of book proposals and such, albeit not without lambasting corporate publishing. But his is a heroic view of writing. Quoting his mentors Raymond Chandler, John Gardner, and Robert Bly, Buhner offers liberating exercises and ardent, even wild exhortations to help writers tap into their dreaming mind and “inhabit” every word, just as he does in this inspiriting call to creative intensity. To sing the book electric. --Donna Seaman " Ensouling Language is Stephen Harrod Buhner at his most spellbinding and enchanted. Every sentence is infused with a livingness that is rare in today's nonfiction. More than simply a book about writing, it is about wielding power--and responsibility--of language itself. Stephen encourages us to breathe the Breath of Life into the words we write, to call forth such a deep richness of meaning that it transmits feeling from the writer to the reader like some otherworldly telepathy. If you can feel you can write, write in this way, turning otherwise empty leaden words into golden Ensouling Language." ― Daniel Vitalis, June 2010 "Buhner's book describes how any writer, even one writing about, say, adobe walls, can achieve the sense of expansion--of traveling into larger worlds--that has always marked the best art. And although the subject is nonfiction, what Buhner has to say applies to serious writing of any kind." ― Akshay Ahuja, The Occasional Review, May 2010 “The most subversive book on writing I have ever encountered--and the most important.” ― Herbie Brennan, New York Times bestselling author of Faerie Wars “If Lao-tzu and Emerson could have a dialogue on writing, they would welcome the company of this remarkable book.” ― William Howarth, author of Walking with Thoreau “Stephen Harrod Buhner has produced a manifesto and guide to bring American writing back from the cages of the academy and release the power of language into the streets and wildernesses where the wild things live. If you love to read, if you like to write, you have finally come to the right place.” ― Charles Bowden, author of Murder City, recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction and the “Stephen Buhner’s Ensouling Language invites you to sit down for 23 cups of coffee and talk about the mystic journey of the writer, the solitary