• A Guide to Writing from the Preeminent 20th-Century Writer

• Analysis of 14 Novels, Essay Collections, Speeches, and Letters by Kurt Vonnegut

Pity the Reader is a collection of Kurt Vonnegut's advice to aspiring writers, his reflections on writing as a craft and an art. It is also a biography of the master of American literature, prepared after Kurt Vonnegut's death by writer Susan McConnell, his former student who was his friend for many years.

Vonnegut's witty and caustic recommendations, taken from his novels, essays, lectures, articles, interviews, and letters, with detailed commentary by Susan McConnell, will inspire anyone who has chosen the path of writing. They will help you understand what to write about and for whom, where to find stories, and how not to disappear in the abyss of creative block and fear. 'Pity the Reader' is a helpful guide for aspiring writers and a great gift for any fan of Kurt Vonnegut.

Susan McConnell is a writer, editor, and teacher. From 1965 to 1967, she attended the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, where Kurt Vonnegut taught. They maintained a long-standing friendship until the writer's death. McConnell published memoirs of her teacher in the Brooklyn Rail and Writer's Digest. She taught creative writing at Hunter University for over 30 years and is currently the fiction editor at Bellevue Literary Review.