Sunday, November 26, 2023

A Little Humor: Snoopy's Guide To The Writer's Life

I’ve always gotten a kick out of Charles Schulz’s cartoon character Snoopy the dog, especially when Snoopy is acting as a would-be-writer, sitting atop his doghouse with a portable typewriter.

Some years ago, I bought a collection of Snoopy’s failed writer cartoon strips, with some more successful writers than Snoopy offering short pieces on Snoopy the aspiring writer. 

You can read the description of the book from Writer’s Digest below:

Snoopy's Guide to the Writing Life
Edited by Barnaby Conrad and Monte Schulz
Writer's Digest Books, 2004

About the Book
Snoopy sits atop his doghouse, banging out stories on a manual typewriter. Usually they begin "It was a dark and stormy night..." Always they're rejected. In Snoopy's Guide to the Writing Life—a wonderful gift for writers—a roundup of 30 famous writers and entertainers respond in short essays to their favorite Snoopy "at the typewriter" strip.

Each essay focuses on how the strip presents an aspect of writing life—getting started, getting rejected, searching for new ideas, and more—everything that beginning and professional writers deal with on a daily basis.

The essays are light and sometimes humorous, but all of them offer insight and inspiration for writers working at any level. The book presents a powerful line-up of contributors, including:

  • Ray Bradbury
  • William F. Buckley, Jr.
  • Julia Child
  • Elizabeth George
  • Sue Grafton
  • Evan Hunter
  • Elmore Leonard
  • Danielle Steel
  • And the Beagle himself!

Editor Barnaby Conrad and Monte Schulz (son of the late Charles Schulz) provide introductory chapters that address the writing life and how Snoopy's experience—his tenacity and resilience—can inspire us all.


Above is my favorite Snoopy cartoon strip.


You can purchase the book via Amazon via the below link:



Note: Cartoonist Charles M. Shultz, seen in the above photo, was born on this date in 1922.

Charles Shultz died in 2000. He was 77.

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