Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

by Elizabeth Gilbert

Overview

The instant #1 NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller — the perfect book to inspire you in the new year!

"A must read for anyone hoping to live a creative life... I dare you not to be inspired to be brave, to be free, and to be curious.” —PopSugar

From the worldwide bestselling author of Eat Pray Love: the path to the vibrant, fulfilling life you’ve dreamed of.
 
Readers of all ages and walks of life have drawn inspiration and empowerment from Elizabeth Gilbert’s books for years. Now this beloved author digs deep into her own generative process to share her wisdom and unique perspective about creativity. With profound empathy and radiant generosity, she offers potent insights into the mysterious nature of inspiration. She asks us to embrace our curiosity and let go of needless suffering. She shows us how to tackle what we most love, and how to face down what we most fear. She discusses the attitudes, approaches, and habits we need in order to live our most creative lives. Balancing between soulful spirituality and cheerful pragmatism, Gilbert encourages us to uncover the “strange jewels” that are hidden within each of us. Whether we are looking to write a book, make art, find new ways to address challenges in our work,  embark on a dream long deferred, or simply infuse our everyday lives with more mindfulness and passion, Big Magic cracks open a world of wonder and joy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781594634727
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/27/2016
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	5,408
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Elizabeth Gilbert is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eat Pray Love and several other internationally bestselling books of fiction and nonfiction. Gilbert began her career writing for Harper's Bazaar, Spin, The New York Times Magazine and GQ, and was a three-time finalist for the National Magazine Award. Her story collection Pilgrims was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway award; The Last American Man was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. The follow-up memoir Committed became an instant #1 New York Times bestseller. Her latest novel, The Signature of All Things, was named a Best Book of 2013 by The New York Times, O Magazine, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and The New Yorker. Gilbert’s short fiction has appeared in Esquire, Story, One Story, and the Paris Review.

Hometown:

Hudson Valley, New York

Date of Birth:

July 18, 1969

Place of Birth:

Waterbury, Connecticut

Education:

BA, New York University, 1991 (Political Science)

Website:

http://www.elizabethgilbert.com

Read an Excerpt

Once upon a time, there was a man named Jack Gilbert, who was not related to me—unfortunately for me.

Jack Gilbert was a great poet, but if you’ve never heard of him, don’t worry about it. It’s not your fault. He never much cared about being known. But I knew about him, and I loved him dearly from a respectful distance, so let me tell you about him.

Jack Gilbert was born in Pittsburgh in 1925 and grew up in the midst of that city’s smoke, noise, and industry. He worked in factories and steel mills as a young man, but was called from an early age to write poetry. He answered the call without hesitation. He became a poet the way other men become monks: as a devotional practice, as an act of love, and as a lifelong commitment to the search for grace and transcendence. I think this is probably a very good way to become a poet. Or to become anything, really, that calls to your heart and brings you to life.

Jack could’ve been famous, but he wasn’t into it. He had the talent and the charisma for fame, but he never had the interest. His first collection, published in 1962, won the prestigious Yale Younger Poets prize and was nominated for the Pulitzer. What’s more, he won over audiences as well as critics, which is not an easy feat for a poet in the modern world. There was something about him that drew people in and kept them captivated. He was handsome, passionate, sexy, brilliant on stage. He was a magnet for women and an idol for men. He was photographed for Vogue, looking gorgeous and romantic. People were crazy about him. He could’ve been a rock star.

Instead, he disappeared. He didn’t want to be distractedby too much commotion. Later in life he reported that he had found his fame boring—not because it was immoral or corrupting, but simply because it was exactly the same thing every day. He was looking for something richer, more textured, more varied. So he dropped out. He went to live in Europe and stayed there for twenty years. He lived for a while in Italy, a while in Denmark, but mostly he lived in a shepherd’s hut on a mountaintop in Greece. There, he contemplated the eternal mysteries, watched the light change, and wrote his poems in private. He had his love stories, his obstacles, his victories. He was happy. He got by somehow, making a living here and there. He needed little. He allowed his name to be forgotten.

After two decades, Jack Gilbert resurfaced and publishedanother collection of poems. Again, the literary world fellin love with him. Again, he could have been famous. Again,he disappeared—this time for a decade. This would be hispattern always: isolation, followed by the publication ofsomething sublime, followed by more isolation. He was likea rare orchid, with blooms separated by many years. Henever promoted himself in the least. (In one of the few interviewshe ever gave, Gilbert was asked how he thoughthis detachment from the publishing world had affected hiscareer. He laughed and said, “I suppose it’s been fatal.”)

The only reason I ever heard of Jack Gilbert was that, quite late in his life, he returned to America and—for motives I will never know—took a temporary teaching position in the creative writing department at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The following year, 2005, it happened that I took exactly the same job. (Around campus,they started jokingly calling the position “the Gilbert Chair.”) I found Jack Gilbert’s books in my office—the office that had once been his. It was almost like the room was still warm from his presence. I read his poems and was overcome by their grandeur, and by how much his writing reminded me of Whitman. (“We must risk delight,” he wrote. “We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.”)

He and I had the same surname, we’d held the same job, we had inhabited the same office, we had taught many ofthe same students, and now I was in love with his words; naturally enough, I became deeply curious about him. I asked around: Who was Jack Gilbert?

Students told me he was the most extraordinary man they’d ever encountered. He had seemed not quite of this world, they said. He seemed to live in a state of uninterrupted marvel, and he encouraged them to do the same. He didn’t so much teach them how to write poetry, they said, but why: because of delight. Because of stubborn gladness. He told them that they must live their most creative lives as a means of fighting back against the ruthless furnace of this world.

Most of all, though, he asked his students to be brave. Without bravery, he instructed, they would never be able to realize the vaulting scope of their own capacities. Without bravery, they would never know the world as richly as it longs to be known. Without bravery, their lives would remain small—far smaller than they probably wanted their lives to be.

I never met Jack Gilbert myself, and now he is gone—he passed away in 2012. I probably could’ve made it a personal mission to seek him out and meet him while he was living, but I never really wanted to. (Experience has taught me to be careful of meeting my heroes in person; it can be terribly disappointing.) Anyway, I quite liked the way he lived inside my imagination as a massive and powerful presence, built out of his poems and the stories I’d heard about him. So I decided to know him only that way—through my imagination. And that’s where he remains for me to this day: still alive inside me, completely internalized, almost as though I dreamed him up.

But I will never forget what the real Jack Gilbert told somebody else—an actual flesh-and-blood person, a shy University of Tennessee student. This young woman recounted to me that one afternoon, after his poetry class, Jack had taken her aside. He complimented her work, then asked what she wanted to do with her life. Hesitantly, she admitted that perhaps she wanted to be a writer.

He smiled at the girl with infinite compassion and asked, “Do you have the courage? Do you have the courage to bring forth this work? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say yes.”

So this, I believe, is the central question upon which all creative living hinges: Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you?

Look, I don’t know what’s hidden within you. I have no way of knowing such a thing. You yourself may barely know, although I suspect you’ve caught glimpses. I don’t know your capacities, your aspirations, your longings, your secret talents. But surely something wonderful is sheltered inside you. I say this with all confidence, because I happen to believe we are all walking repositories of buried treasure.I believe this is one of the oldest and most generous tricks the universe plays on us human beings, both for its own amusement and for ours: The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them.

The hunt to uncover those jewels—that’s creative living.

The courage to go on that hunt in the first place—that’s what separates a mundane existence from a more enchanted one.

The often surprising results of that hunt—that’s what I call Big Magic.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Praise for Eat Pray Love:
 
“Gilbert’s prose is fueled by a mix of intelligence, wit and colloquial exuberance that is close to irresistible.”—Jennifer Egan, The New York Times Book Review

“A meditation on love in its many forms … her extraordinary journey lets even the most cynical reader dare to dream.” – Los Angeles Times
 
Praise for The Signature of All Things:
 
“A bracing homage to the many natures of genius and the inevitable progress of ideas, in a world that reveals its best truths to the uncommonly patient minds.”– Barbara Kingsolver, The New York Times Book Review
 
“Raucously ingenious…Signature is not just a historical novel that spans two centuries and many geographies.  It’s a 500-page novel of ideas…I found unshackled joy on every page.” — The Chicago Tribune
                                                                     
“A delightful book…one of the best of the year…Gilbert marries the technical, cultural and spiritual with a warm, frankly funny wit that adds richness to all three.”– “All Things Considered,” NPR
 
 
 
 

Interviews

Barnes & Noble Review Interview with Elizabeth Gilbert

If you've watched either of Elizabeth Gilbert's erudite and compelling TED talks on creativity ("Success, Failure and the Drive to Keep Creating" and "Your Elusive Creative Genius"), then you know that she is equally talented at speaking eloquently about the ups and downs of the artistic life while injecting warmth, humor, and fitting anecdotes into the conversation. The phenomenally successful author of Eat, Pray, Love and six other books (including The Last American Man, a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, as well as the novel The Signature of All Things) practices what she preaches. Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear is a welcome addition in the creative self-help genre. Gilbert joins other esteemed authors like Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird) and Stephen King (On Writing), but unlike their books, aimed specifically toward writers, Gilbert's is concerned with anyone who wants to embrace an inspired life.

I spoke to her via Skype on a day when I was feeling particularly down, and five minutes into our hour-long conversation, I immediately felt a sense of buoyancy and camaraderie. (Perhaps that had to do with realizing that instead of recording the interview, I was only recording my side of the conversation. I left my headphones in for the first couple of minutes. But Gilbert and I laughed and started over again. Mistakes, after all, are part of the process.) —Michele Filgate

The Barnes & Noble Review: In Big Magic, you write: "The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them." Your TED talks and now this book are full of inspirational nuggets. How did you get to a point where you felt like you could live a positive, happy life as an artist instead of a suffering artist?

Elizabeth Gilbert: I've just never been attracted to the very macho German romantic icon of the suffering, tormented artist. I think I've always doubted how authentic that is, and I've also doubted and pondered how necessary it is to have that level of drama around the work that you naturally feel called to do. My sense is if this is the talent or the gift or even the curiosity that you have, then why is it our assumption that it came to torment you? And why can it not be your assumption that it came to embiggen your soul? That it came to offer you access and portals into parts of yourself that might make your life richer and better and might make you a more generous and interesting person rather than a more savagely unhappy one . . . And one of the lines I have in Big Magic is, "Maybe creativity is not fucking with us, but we've been fucking with it." Like maybe all it wants to do is engage with us in a really delightful way and we've just been insisting this thing has to be a battle because of our dumb martyrdom scars. So yeah, it's kind of been with me all along. I feel like it's more interesting in a weird way, a more punk rock way to do it.

BNR: I think there's a false assumption that you need to come from money in order to live a successful life as an artist. And as you point out in your book, people take on jobs that have nothing to do with their craft in order to support themselves. So how do we separate the arts from money when we live in a society where we so desperately need things like artist residencies and fellowships so people have time to create? EG: First of all, if money was the only thing people needed in order to live actualized, creative lives, then the most creative and inspiring people in our society would be the mega-rich and their children . . . Some of the most interesting and engaging creative expressions of anything that have been made on Earth have been made by people who did not have a lot of excess resources; they didn't have a lot of excess time . . . So I cannot get behind this idea that creativity is something that is only allowed for people who are highly privileged, because the entirety of human history does not support that idea. And I feel like if you're a human being, you're a creative person. And that is something that everybody — every single person — has entitlement to. I feel like I'm very frustrated by the fact that currently in our society we seem to have this idea that creativity only belongs to people who got the right MFA, live in the right city, have access to the right contacts. No. Or that if you don't have an artist's residency, you can't make art, which is also a pile of fucking bullshit.

I was given an artist's residency once in my life, which was an amazing thing, and it was on my third book, you know? I didn't have it for the first two. And when I was writing the first two, I was a bartender and a waitress and an au pair and a flea marketer, and nobody was giving me space and time, and I didn't have an art patron, and I became my own studio wife and I became my own patron. Which is what most human beings in history have had to do.

We don't do this stuff because we have a lot of extra time and money for it. We do this stuff because we can't not do it. And so if you're talking yourself out of expressing your creativity because you feel like you lack everything that you think you need in order to do it, then I'm going to have a really big argument with you about that. To me, the definition of a creative life is something very simple. It's any life where you consistently make decisions based on curiosity rather than fear. And that is accessible to every single living and breathing human being . . .

BNR: Do you ever or did you ever doubt your own advice when writing this book? Because I'm curious about the pressure you place on yourself, now that so many millions of people look to you for guidance.

EG: This is a book I've been thinking about writing for twelve years, and when I ask myself why I didn't write it sooner, it was because I didn't believe in my own authority to say what I already knew, if that makes sense. Everything that I say in that book is like I'm totally smoking what I'm selling. That book is completely my code of what I live by and how I do my work and how I've always done my work.

But I don't know whether I felt like it was okay yet to suggest to other people "Hey, you want to do it this way?" So I was living by that stuff, but I don't feel like I felt at ease preaching it. And I think I couldn't have written that book until I was 45, until I had written seven other books . . . But I think this is the first time in my life where I feel like the confidence, you know — maybe it's the confidence of middle age, but it's the confidence to say, "This is how I've been engaging with this work forever, and I have a really pleasurable, generative relationship with creativity. And I know that because I can look back at it and say this is always how I felt about it, whether it was working or not working, whether I was successful or not successful."

BNR: How did the success of Eat, Pray, Love change your relationship to creativity if it did at all?

EG: You know what it did? It forced me back into my oldest version of my relationship with it. That was the only way I could continue, because the question that arose of course after Eat, Pray, Love was, How can you top this? And the answer was, You can't. You can't, Gilbert. Like you are done. Like you have reached your peak, because this is not something that can be replicated.

But the good thing, in a weird way, about Eat, Pray, Love being an outlier phenomenon was that it was such an outlier phenomenon, you would have to be totally mentally ill or so self- hating to try to say, "I'm going to do better than that last time." Because you can't.

Now I mean I can't do better than that commercially, right? As a creative person, I feel like I can look at that book and say, "I think I can do better than that creatively. I think I can make work — I think I can improve as a writer." But I certainly cannot . . . look, it's the Thriller album. I can't do that again. You know? That's it. That's my Thriller. That's it. I know it is.

I'm not a very competitive person. I'm a very ambitious person, and it's taken me a long time to recognize the difference between those two words. Competitive means I have to win against everybody and I also have to win against myself. Ambitious means I just want to do really good work. And those are really different ideas.

So, anyway, the notion — it wasn't even a notion — the fact that I can never do better than that meant that I'd better find another reason to write besides wanting to break my own records. And so that reason to write turned out to be the very deepest, oldest reason, the same reason I was doing it when I was sixteen; the same reason I was doing it when I was nineteen; the same reason I was doing it when I was twenty-three, and no one cared. I still have yet to find a more effective way to animate my soul than by engaging with language at this level. So I'm just going to do that . . . I know that I can do it. I know that I can write regardless of the outcome, because I always did. I always had to.

BNR: Yes, and there's a freedom in that in a lot of ways. I love that you write, "I believe that our creativity grows like sidewalk weeds out of the cracks between our pathologies — not from the pathologies themselves." So people don't create because they drink or take drugs. You quote Raymond Carver as saying "Any artist who is an alcoholist is an artist despite their alcoholism, not because of it." How do we rewrite this romanticized image of the barely functioning creative person that's so prevalent in our culture?

EG: I think it's a hard one, and another reason I didn't write this book for so long was because I didn't want to get in that argument, because I'm not an argumentative person. And I thought, Oh man, this is going to be a fight because here comes Van Gogh. And everyone's going to be like, Yeah, but what about Van Gogh? Then I just feel myself just getting very weary and saying, "Van Gogh was a severely mentally ill individual who happened to also be a creative genius." The institutions and prisons and streets of our country are filled with severely mentally ill people who do not happen to be creative geniuses. To be mentally ill does not mean that you are also a creative genius. These things happened to overlap in his life . . . And all I can think is what degree of depression and despair would mentally ill artists have without their art? In fact, it might be the thing that's keeping them safe and alive, not the thing that's driving them mad.

The romanticizing of it is the thing I have a problem with . . . trying to live your life so it looks like you're a deranged genius. Maybe it's easier to do heroin than it is to do your work. There's a young writer whom I really admire and have been encouraging a lot who just said to me in an email recently, "Yeah, I've been drinking too much and I've been doing too many drugs. But, you know, I hang around with a bunch of artists so what do you expect?" And I was like, "How much work are they fucking doing? How much work is your friend, the fucking artist sitting in the bar at 2:00 in the afternoon, actually doing?" The sooner you realize that this sort of Bukowski-esque glamour that you're creating around yourself because you think that that's the emblem of your creativity is actually just eating up enormous amounts of hours and days and months out of your short life, I think the sooner you might return to the work and put down the mollies.

BNR: I particularly like the part in the book where you talk about the fact that most people aren't really thinking about you, the artist, and that we tend to get too hung up on impressing other people. I think social media amplifies this in a way. It's a curated selection and often a highlights reel of others' lives, and on a bad day an artist can take a look at all of the other things people are accomplishing and feel sort of worthless. But I adore your social media presence, and I feel like you try to remind people of their creative potential. So how can people who have a terrible habit of comparing themselves to friends and strangers stop doing that?

EG: I find it helps if I just remind myself that we're all a big, messy clown show inside. I love the Buddhist meditation teacher Pema Chodron. I was listening once to a recording of a conference that she was running. She had led everybody into meditation. You know, I'm listening to it in bed with my earbuds and thinking how amazing it would be to be there. I'm sure it's a really beautiful room and I'm sure they have incense, and to be with this great meditation teacher. So she has the silence and the meditation. Then she just started laughing. She looks out. You can just hear her cracking up. And she said, "I look out at all of you out there, and you all look like such perfect little Buddhas with your lovely posture and your closed eyes and your hands on your knees and the pontific glow that's coming off you. But I know the reality: it's a madhouse in there." And everybody just started laughing. She's like, "I know how crazy you all are and what you're struggling and suffering with in your mind. And no matter how peaceful your face looks right now . . . " And you can just hear people cracking up, because that is of course what meditation is. It's just you looking at what a monkey show you are.

And I feel like I know that about everyone. It's not to say that I want to call bullshit on what they're putting on social media, because I think when they do put the picture of themselves on the beach with their friend having a great day, they put that picture on because it was a great moment. I think it's wonderful, and I want them to have all the great moments in the world. I also know that they probably, like me, suffer from terrible, debilitating insecurity. That they have shame attacks every couple of days; that they wonder if they're wasting their life; you know, that they know that their parents loved their brother more than they loved them. Whatever the thing is, I know that that is also true. And it's all true. It's all true. And that really what yo're doing when you're engaging with creativity is not trying to prove that you're the greatest and the best and the most perfect. If that is what you're doing, then you're signing up for a lot of suffering. What you're really doing is you're saying, "I'm part of this monkey show. I'm another member of this circus, with all my frailties and vulnerabilities and imperfections. I am a constituent of creation too, and therefore I am exerting my natural-born human right to impose myself a little bit on the world and say that I also want to have a voice and here it is. Here's me. Here's me on a bad day. Here's me on a good day. Here's me as a hot mess. Here's me deciding that I don't just want to be a consumer and I don't just want to be a bystander and I don't just want to be a witness. I also want to be a participant in the world that I for some reason live in. And that's all it is. That's fine. That's good enough. More than good enough; it's awesome.

BNR: Is there such a thing as typical writing day for you? If so, what does that look like?

EG: I don't write every day. I write project-by-project, so sometimes I go months or even years without writing because I'll be doing research or I'll be on tour for another book. I mean it usually takes me a couple years to get prepared to write a book, because I can't just sit down and write cold. I have to gather everything that I need.

So with that said, when those days do come, usually at this point in my life it means clearing off the calendar way in advance . . . And then the next layer of decision making is you decide the night before whether you're doing to write the next day, and that determines are you going to have another bottle of wine? Are you going to watch Breaking Bad until 2:00 in the morning? Are you going to stay on Instagram all night or not? Because if you do all of those things the night before, it's very unlikely that you're going to have a good writing day the next day. So a lot of it is just about laying the best possible environment for yourself way in advance so that you don't just sit down hung over and rushed with like ten other things on the calendar and be like, Why isn't this working? You really have to lay the foundation for yourself as generously as you possibly can.

And I think the biggest problem I had when I was a younger writer is I didn't know how to help myself do that. I didn't know how to help Liz — I didn't know how to help future Liz. So a lot of what I'm doing now, like for instance I'm on book tour now but I have a novel that I'm beginning to work on but it needs a lot of research, but I don't really have time, but I have twenty minutes a day. You always have twenty minutes a day. So I'm setting aside twenty minutes a day to read some books from the 1940s and take some notes on stuff. And that's it.

And it doesn't produce very much, but I have this lovely feeling while I'm doing it that I'm helping future Liz with her book so that when future Liz sits down to work she actually has stuff to work with. And when I'm working, sometimes I'll find index cards that I had written with notes and I'll be like, Oh, thanks past Liz, it's so nice of you to do that for me. You just made this part of my writing this chapter so much easier. So it's about being helpful to yourself.

And then I get up really early, and I can never really write for more than — I mean unless I'm at the end of the book and it's really barreling — I can never write for more than three hours at the most.

BNR: That's such a relief to hear, because I'm the same way.

EG: Well, it's another reason why I get hives when people say they're going to quit their job to write their novel. You don't need forty hours a week for this. First of all, if I write three hours a day, that is a banging day for me. At the beginning of the book it's probably going to be more like forty-five minutes, because that's all I can sustain. When people say, "I can't have a day job. I'm a painter." I'm like, "Do you honestly paint nine hours a day? I don't know any human being who does that."

BNR: Yeah.

EG: John Updike said the best novels he'd ever read were written in less than an hour a day, and I think that's absolutely true. And then the rest of the day, you know, I just dick around on emails.

BNR: [Laughs] I love your honesty.

EG: Most of what we do is nothing. Most of what we do in our day is a whole lot of nothing.

BNR: But that helps.

EG: It doesn't take much. It doesn't take much. If you give half an hour of your day to just following your creative curiosity in some direction or other you'll be amazed at how much it adds up.

—September 30, 2015

Editorial Reviews

★ 06/15/2015
Gilbert (The Signature of All Things) offers an empathetic and inspiring guide to mustering the courage to live a creative life. That doesn’t necessarily mean a career in the arts, she’s quick to point out (“If you’re alive, you’re a creative person,” she states); instead, she proposes a life fueled by curiosity rather than fear. Gilbert, more than most, can understand how a big success can make one feel as if the follow-up must not disappoint, writing that “I can’t tell you how many people said to me during those years , ‘How are you ever going to top that?’ ” She notes that this kind of pressure can be an instant creativity killer and encourages readers to let go of perfectionism and embrace being good enough. This mind-set, in her experience, leads to the willingness to take chances, live life to the fullest, and act on risky ideas. Gilbert divides her book into six sections, each devoted to a quality she believes necessary for living without fear: courage, enchantment, permission, persistence, trust, and divinity. In each section, Gilbert peppers sound advice with personal triumphs and failures. Nearly anyone who picks up this self-help manual should finish it feeling inspired, even if only to dream of a life without limits. Agent: Sarah Chalfant, Wylie Agency. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

A "best audio book for multitaskers" —NYMag 

“Big Magic is a celebration of a creative life…Gilbert’s love of creativity is infectious, and there’s a lot of great advice in this sunny book…Gilbert doesn’t just call for aspiring artists to speak their truth, however daffy that may appear to others; she is showing them how.” —Washington Post

"In [Gilbert’s] first foray into full-on self-help [she] shares intimate glimpses into the life of a world-famous creative, complete with bouts of paralyzing fear and frustration, in an attempt to coax the rest of us into walking through the world just a little bit braver.”  —Elle

“The Eat, Pray, Love author demystifies the tricky business of creativity. We’re all ears.” —Cosmopolitan

“Elizabeth Gilbert is my new spirit animal… I have profoundly changed my approach to creating since I read this book." —Huffington Post

“Gilbert leads readers through breaking out of their own creative ruts, finding fulfillment, and facing fear while finding balance between our spiritual and pragmatic beings in her forth coming book. Yes, please.” —Bustle

“Big Magic will resonate with writers and artists who find the process of producing work to be particularly painful…Through anecdotes about her creative failures and resourcefulness, as well as those other artists, Gilbert encourages readers to pursue a creative life ‘that is driven more strongly by curiosity than by fear." —Daily Beast

"Gilbert demystifies the creative process, examining the practices of great artists to shed light on finding inspiration in the every day.” —Harper’s Bazaar

“Big Magic tackles the challenges of living the creative life…Reading it is a little like having a coach by your side, cheering on your efforts – whatever they are – candidly and selflessly.” –Christian Science Monitor

“Gilbert [writes] with sincerity and humility about the joy that creativity has given her... If you enjoyed Eat Pray Love, if you are drawn to self-help or inspirational books, or if you just like to bask in another person’s positive glow, you’ll love Big Magic.” –Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“Big Magic wants to help its readers live creatively…[Gilbert believes] creativity is inside all of us, it should be expressed, and it is not selfish or crazy or foolish to do so – it is in fact the best way to live a satisfying life...[Big Magic] constitutes good advice…[in a voice that’s] charming, personable, self-aware, jokey, conversational….[and] that Gilbert does so well.” —New York Times Book Review

“A lucid and luminous inquiry into the relationship between human beings and the mysteries of the creative experience… What makes her book so immensely helpful is precisely its lived and living nature…wholly electrifying.” —Brainpickings
 
"Gilbert tackles heavy, sensitive subject matter but keeps it light, making what's essentially a self-help book feel like a good talk with a friend rather than a sermon."—Associated Press
 
“Transformative.” —Flavorwire

“Gilbert’s trademark warmth and enthusiasm abounds...wise...[and] pointed." —Boston Globe

“Part pat-on-the-back, part slap-in-the-face, [Big Magic is] a permission slip for readers to stop making excuses and get to work… a fresh and modern surprise that fans of her work will relish." —Wichita Eagle

“Funny. Insightful. Honest. Irreverent...But, of course, most of us have read Gilbert before and these qualities find their way into all of her works. The particular form of magic in Big Magic comes in a very unusual wrapping: hope and love...Big Magic read[s] like a devotional. Like a love letter to the earnest artist inside most of our hearts.” —Books and Whatnot

“Distinctly refreshing." —TED Ideas Blog

"Full of chatty advice, pep talks, amusing and inspiring stories...Gilbert’s idea of living creatively may incorporate touches of magic, but she’s practical in the extreme.” —Miami Herald

“In her signature conversational style, both sassy and serious, Gilbert invokes high- and low-brow cultural references and recommends we channel our inner trickster… [Her] manifesto is a book to read through quickly, and then start again to discover any big magic you may have missed.” – KMUW

“Gilbert will completely change the way you think about the creative process.”—Indienext

“The writing here is so friendly and funny that Gilbert’s perspective on creative living goes down like lemonade in summer." —BookPage

“From the deeply self-aware, poetically gifted author of Eat, Pray, Love comes... the best nonfiction book I’ve read in years. For anyone who's ever struggled with feeling worthy to express themselves through art, or been discouraged by the absence of inspiration, I'm not being hyperbolic when I say this book might just change your life.” —Mind Body Green

“Gilbert, author of the wildly successful memoir “Eat, Pray, Love” and a successful novelist (“The Signature of All Things”) offers her prescriptions for unlocking the creativity within.” —Seattle Times

“Whatever your artistic pursuit, you’ll nod in agreement as Elizabeth Gilbert reflects on the elusive, frustrating and sometimes comically strange process of creativity. Thoughtful and funny, Gilbert makes an excellent case for doing whatever it takes to unlock your inner artist and find more joy in life.” —Woman's Day

“What Gilbert’s offering her fans…[is] permission to be creative…[She] is interested in the importance of creativity for the individual’s soul…When you hear the people who want to create, and the gratitude they feel toward [her], you can’t help feeling that she’s healed them—that she has, in fact, become the kind of guru she once sought.” —The New Yorker, on the "Magic Lessons" podcast series
 
“The latest from Gilbert is all about you—that’s 268 pages of practical advice for tapping into your own creativity... Consider her your own personal life coach.”—Marie Claire
 
"A must read for anyone hoping to live a creative life... I dare you not to be inspired to be brave, to be free, and to be curious.” —PopSugar

“Elizabeth Gilbert is an exceptionally gifted author…and this book is remarkable…. It is so densely packed with pearls of wisdom that I read it once for pleasure, and then again to unpack and outline the text just like I used to do in college…A must-read for anyone on the creative spectrum, from those who don’t think there is a creative bone in their body to those who make a living from their artistic expression.” –Yakima Herald

“Reading Big Magic is the next best thing to hiring Elizabeth Gilbert [as your] coach.”—PARNASSUS BOOKS

“A joyful ride through the enigmatic jungle of creative existence… [Big Magic] is not just about the production of artistic works but about building a life that nurtures the creative being in all of us.”—CREATIV Magazine

"Big Magic [is ]… fearless of voice and heart-opening in authenticity; in short, a book worthy of its name." —Literary Inklings

“A conversational, intimate glimpse into Gilbert’s process and philosophy, as personable as a confab over coffee… essential reading for anyone who wants to live a larger life, filled with more ideas, more projects, and more fulfillment…Big Magic is powerful stuff.” –Barnes & Noble Blog

“A book-length meditation on inspiration.” —Newsday

“Whether you long to write the great American novel or you just want to be more present and mindful in your daily life, you can find plenty of inspiration in this self-help tome… … the can-do, optimistic tone makes for an uplifting read.” –All You Magazine

"[Gilbert will] make you feel giddy about creation." –Medium

"Gilbert mines her writer's career to provide unique, inspiring and constructive insights on how to navigate the wild ride that is the creative life... Her charming nuggets are wise, comforting and ultimately encouraging." –About.com

“Gilbert offers helpful suggestions for outwitting writer’s block and perfectionism...and lets a tart sense of humor emerge." -Columbus Dispatch

“Anyone living with some manifestation of writer’s block (or any other artistic variant of such affliction) will find [Gilbert's] sage advice is effectively a worthwhile kick in the butt… Without the smallest hint of narcissism, the mega-bestselling author shares the pinnacles and pitfalls of failure and success and how to wrangle the criticism, inside and out.”—Steamboat Pilot & Today

“Gilbert sweetly yet powerfully nudges readers to release fear, summon courage and allow the ‘strange jewels’ hidden within each of us to emerge and shine. The end result is the ‘big magic’… Engaging storytelling mixed with personal anecdotes and astute insights make Big Magic a rewarding, motivating and delightful read.” —Sucess Magazine

“There's nothing hippie-dippy about Gilbert's raw, honest, and downright hilarious observations of her own creative plight...This isn't a How-To guide for creative living; this is the story of how one woman simply figured things out for herself, and learned how to live in harmony with her own creative soul. All can find a kind of solemn peace and reassurance in her words.” -Everyday eBook

“A transformative nonfiction treatise on creativity…Filled with her signature humor, big-heartedness, wild vulnerability and wisdom, Gilbert delivers a vibrant and inspirational book.” -About Town Magazine

"A booster that will help you out of any rut.” -Kansas City Star

"The author of Eat Pray Love, who has already changed so many lives, now looks to change thinking on creativity." -The New York Daily News

“Worth a read for any artist struggling for some peace and quiet in a head bursting with creativity."
– Bustle, Included in “9 Books To Help You Find Inner Peace”

"Some might call Elizabeth Gilbert by the name Queen Midas … Everything she touches seems to turn to gold. A rare gift, this book acknowledges difficulty, but empowers its readers to transcend it in the name of the beautiful mysteries of existence.” —WNC Woman Magazine

“A magnificent guide to how to be creative…[and] a heartfelt gem… I simultaneously wanted to quickly turn the page to see what was next while savoring the advice on each page… Gilbert is determined to guide you into the light. Go with her.” —Jersey Journal

"Irresistible…If creativity is something you value highly—both in others and as fundamental to your own existence—you should find much to love in Big Magic, whether or not you typically gravitate toward creativity guides.” —Chapter 16

"A non-fiction tour-de force...pragmatic, rational, and wholly convincing." —Reader's Digest UK

“A treasure map to unleash your most creative and expressive life.” –Marie TV

“Big Magic seeks to both inspire you and strip you of any excuse to not pursue your creative interests…[it’s] passionate, down-to-earth and bursting with Gilbert’s obvious love for the subject matter and her readers… a delight to read.” –Pop Mythology 

“An empathetic and inspiring guide to mustering the courage to live a creative life. … Nearly anyone who picks up this self-help manual should finish it feeling inspired, even if only to dream of a life without limits.” —Publisher's Weekly (starred review) 

"Gilbert serves as an enthusiastic coach for readers who want more out of life. Highly recommended." —Library Journal (starred review)

“Gilbert’s wise and motivating book of encouragement and advice will induce readers not only to follow specific artistic dreams but also to live life more creatively, fully, and contentedly.” – Booklist 

"The sincerity, grace, and flashes of humor that characterize [Gilbert’s] writing and insights should appeal to a wider audience…warmly inspirational.” —Kirkus

From the Publisher

★ 07/01/2015
Gilbert, of Eat Pray Love fame, aims to encourage lives more strongly driven by curiosity than by fear. Having the courage to do that, says the author, will lead to an enchanted existence. Readers start the process by daily respecting their inclinations and creative instincts then running with them. Persistence and trust in oneself through failures are necessary challenges—the only way to find hidden internal treasure—that will result in discovering a divine spirit within. VERDICT Gilbert serves as an enthusiastic coach for readers who want more out of life. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 3/9/15.]

Library Journal

2015-05-26
The bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love reflects on what it means to pursue a creative life. At the beginning of her latest book, Gilbert (The Signature of All Things, 2013, etc.) writes that creativity is "the relationship between a human being and the mysteries of inspiration." Then the author explains how individuals can live that relationship on a daily basis. First and foremost, she writes, people seeking to live creatively and pursue the things that bring them satisfaction must be prepared to live courageously. Only then can they "bring forth the treasures that are hidden within [them]." Gilbert also suggests that the ideas on which all creative acts are based do not come from a person: they are "disembodied, energetic life-form[s]" that seek human hosts who can make them real. This is part of what the author believes makes creativity itself a "force of enchantment—not entirely human in its origins." To actually manifest ideas requires what Gilbert sees as the ability to give oneself permission to engage in creative acts regardless of what anyone else may think. It also requires persistence and being able to stomach the many "shit sandwiche[s]" of disappointment and frustration that so often go along with creative endeavors. Having a burning passion for the work involved—the intensity of which Gilbert likens to a "hot…extramarital affair"—is also crucial. So is trusting in the creative process—no matter how eccentric and/or nonlinear it may seem—and in the idea that "the work wants to be made, and it wants to be made through you." Not all readers will embrace the New-Age way in which Gilbert discusses the creative process, but the sincerity, grace, and flashes of humor that characterize her writing and insights should appeal to a wider audience. Not earth shattering but warmly inspirational.

Kirkus Reviews