Allegra Huston

Too many writers suffer under friendly fire. Too many pros are ground down by unhelpful supervision. How to Edit and Be Edited is the first book to set out the principles of constructive editing--how to provide it, and how to obtain it from those who read your work.An editor and film development executive for over 30 years, Allegra Huston has worked with writers including two Nobel Prize winners, three Booker Prize winners, and Jane Goodall. As the author of the bestselling memoir Love Child and the novel A Stolen Summer, as well as numerous screenplays and magazine articles, she has worked with editors and development executives across the spectrum. In this concise guide, she shares techniques that energize and inspire the writer, clarify problems and foster a strong working relationship."The Twice 5 Miles guides How to Read for an Audience and How to Edit and Be Edited should be required reading for all writers and editors, as well as all creative writing teachers and students. Both books are bursting with outstanding insights and fresh ideas. I wish I had had both of them years ago, and they've changed the way I think about reading in front of an audience and reading the work of other writers. And as a bonus, they're written in prose so accomplished and excellent, they're a lesson in itself on How to Write a Brilliant Writing Guide. Whether you're a newbie beginner or a well-seasoned pro or somewhere in between, these books will make you a better editor, reader, and writer." --Kate Christensen, PEN/Faulkner Award-winning novelist and former teacher at Iowa Writers Workshop"Deft, clear and charming, without a wasted word. The series, which might as well be subtitled 'things writers are too embarrassed to ask about, ' promises to immediately fill a tremendous need in the lives of those of who still live and die by the book." " --Jonathan Lethem, NYT bestselling novelist and Roy E. Disney '51 Chair in Creative Writing, Pomona College"An indispensable tool for students in terms of learning how to respond to fellow writers in a workshop setting. This is a very valuable book."--Sue William Silverman, novelist and memoirist, faculty member at Vermont College of Fine Arts

ââ?¬Ë?Highly-charged and sensual.ââ?¬â?¢ Santa Montefioreââ?¬Ë?Powerful, beautifully paced, controlled and assured.ââ?¬â?¢ Elizabeth Buchanââ?¬Ë?A ravishing love story, hot-blooded, poignant, filled with yearning.ââ?¬â?¢Joanna Lumley ***

How to Read for an Audience is the first book designed to teach writers how to present their work in public. Short yet packed with information, this indispensable guide advises you how to choose your material, how to prepare, and how to make your bookstore reading or open mic a powerful promotion of your work. Nervous? Feeling unprepared or overwhelmed? Worry no more James Nav and Allegra Huston, a performance poet/creativity coach and a novelist/editor, share their decades of combined experience in an easy-to-read guide that will increase both your comfort level and your skill in reading for an audience. You might even come to enjoy it "Bursting with outstanding insights and fresh ideas . . . should be required reading for all writers, as well as all creative writing teachers and students. Whether you're a newbie beginner or a well-seasoned pro, this book will make you a better reader and writer." --Kate Christensen, PEN/Faulkner Award-winning novelist and former teacher at Iowa Writers Workshop"Deft, clear and charming . . . This series promises to immediately fill a tremendous need in the lives of those of who still live and die by the book." --Jonathan Lethem, NYT bestselling novelist and Roy E. Disney '51 Chair in Creative Writing, Pomona College"James Nav 's help is practical, unique and gets to the psychological core. He is encouraging in that most helpful sense: he shows you how to find your courage." - Greg Palast, investigative journalist and NYT bestselling author

- Inside a legendary American family: Allegra Huston was the third child of John Huston's fourth wife, the beautiful ballet dancer Ricki Soma. In this graceful, penetrating memoir, Allegra takes us into the world of a child unmoored by her mother's sudden death and sent on an odyssey which took her from John Huston's fabulous estate in Ireland, to the American suburbs, to a hidden paradise in Mexico--and, at the side of her older sister Anjelica, into the hilltop retreats of Jack Nicholson, Ryan O'Neal, and Marlon Brando. Allegra paints a vivid, caring, and affecting portrait of her parents and the luminous circle of friends, acquaintances, lovers, and artists who were a part of family life. . - A revelatory twist and family connection: At the age of twelve Allegra Huston discovered her biological father to be the British aristocrat and historian John Julius Norwich. Suffused with a quiet intensity of emotion, Love Child explores family secrets and family bonds, and the unreliable certainties of memory--and ends with an unexpected triumph..

When Allegra Huston was four years old, her mother was killed in a car crash. Soon afterwards, she was introduced to an intimidating man wreathed in cigar smoke - the legendary film director John Huston - with the words, 'This is your father'. So began an extraordinary odyssey: from the magical Huston estate in Ireland, to the Long Island suburbs, to a hidden paradise in Mexico - and, at the side of her older sister, Anjelica, into the hilltop retreats of Jack Nicholson, Ryan O'Neal, and Marlon Brando. Allegra's is the penetrating gaze of an outsider never quite sure if she belongs in this rarefied world, and of a motherless child trying to make sense of her famous, fragmented family. Then, at the age of twelve, Allegra's precarious sense of self is shattered when she is, once more, introduced to her father - her real one, this time, the British aristocrat and historian John Julius Norwich. At the heart of "Love Child" is Allegra's search through the unreliable certainties of memory for the widely adored mother she never knew - the ghost who shadowed her childhood and left her in a web of awkward and unwelcome truths. With clear-eyed tenderness, Allegra tells of how she forged bonds with both her famous fathers, transforming her mother's difficult legacy into a hard-won blessing. Beautifully written and forensically honest, "Love Child" is a seductive insight into one of Hollywood's great dynasties, and the story of how, in a family that defied convention, one woman found her balance on the shifting sands of conflicting loyalties.