Richard Goodman is the author of The Soul of Creative Writing and French Dirt: The Story of a Garden in the South of France. He has written on a variety of subjects for many national publications, including the New York Times, Harvard Review, Creative Nonfiction, Commonweal, Vanity Fair, Garden Design, The Writer's Chronicle, The Louisville Review, Saveur, Ascent, French Review, and the Michigan Quarterly Review.

His essay, "In Search of the Exact Word," appears in the Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus. He wrote the introduction for Travelers' Tales Provence. Richard Goodman has taught writing in New York for many years, and was a founding member of the New York Writers Workshop. He teaches Creative Nonfiction at Spalding University’s Brief Residency MFA in Writing Program in Louisville, Kentucky. Richard Goodman travels widely conducting workshops on writing around the country.

Selected Works

Nonfiction
The Soul of Creative Writing

The Soul of Creative Writing is now available in paperback.

"Richard Goodman’s marvelous book, The Soul of Creative Writing, will instruct, delight, edify, challenge, reassure, and guide any student of writing to a personal best."
–Molly Peacock, author of Cornucopia: New & Selected Poems

"Richard Goodman is one of the most generous and astute literary guides I've read. This book is a gift to writers."
–Rebecca Walker, author of Black, White and Jewish

"This book is not just for writers then, but for lovers of words and writing. For renewing my excitement about what I've chosen to do for a living, this book deserves thirteen exclamation marks".
–Stephanie Dickison, The Writer

Midwest Book Review writes: "The Soul of Creative Writing is a must for any community library collections gathering books on writing."

Writer's Notes declares that in The Soul of Creative Writing, Richard Goodman "gathers a collection of his insightful essays into a single entity that possesses both a heart and soul that will inspire and guide fiction and nonfiction writers."

French Dirt: The Story of a Garden in the South of France
"I possess a deep prejudice against anything written by Anglo-Saxons about their lives in or near French villages. So, Richard, I thank you for breaking the spell. I like very much what you wrote."
–M.F.K. Fisher

French Dirt is one of the most charming, perceptive and subtle books ever written about the French by an American."
–San Francisco Chronicle

Quick Links

Richard Goodman interviewed by Katerina Stoykova-Klemer.
Richard Goodman interviewed by Derek Alger of Pif Magazine
The Soul of Creative Writing's page on Facebook.
Find Authors