Writing about yourself can be difficult and even a little boring. This collection of short, witty essays is here to help you with this daunting task! This book offers multiple (50!) examples of creative responses to essay prompts. In so doing, it is a resource for teachers, students, and anyone who wants to think creatively. This invaluable resource can help anyone who needs a creative approach to college essays, personal statements, memoir writing, or personal writing for business or pleasure.

"It is often said that education and training are the keys to the future. They are, but a key can be turned in two directions. Turn it one way andyou lock resources away, even from those they belong to. Turn it the otherway and you release resources and give people back to themselves. To realizeour true creative potential—in our organizations, in our schools and in our communities—we need to think differently about ourselves and to actdifferently towards each other. We must learn to be creative." —Ken Robinson PRAISE FOR OUT OF OUR MINDS "Ken Robinson writes brilliantly about the different ways in which creativity is undervalued and ignored . . . especially in our educational systems." —John Cleese "Out of Our Minds explains why being creative in today'sworld is a vital necessity. This book is not to be missed." —Ken Blanchard, co-author of The One-minute Manager and The Secret "If ever there was a time when creativity was necessary for the survival andgrowth of any organization, it is now. This book, more than any other I know, providesimportant insights on how leaders can evoke and sustain those creative juices." —Warren Bennis, Distinguished Professor of Business, University of Southern California; Thomas S. Murphy Distinguished Rresearch Fellow, Harvard Business School; Best-selling Author, Geeks and Geezers "All corporate leaders should read this book." —Richard Scase, Author and Business Forecaster "This really is a remarkable book. It does for human resources what Rachel Carson's Silent Spring did for the environment." —Wally Olins, Founder, Wolff-olins "Books about creativity are not always creative. Ken Robinson's is a welcome exception" —Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, c.s. and d.j. Davidson Professor of Psychology, Claremont Graduate University; Director, Quality of Life Research Center; Best-selling Author, Flow "The best analysis I've seen of the disjunction between the kinds of intelligence that we have traditionally honored in schools and the kinds ofcreativity that we need today in our organizations and our society." —Howard Gardner, a. hobbs professor in cognition and education, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Best-selling Author, Frames of Mind

Imaginative. Innovative. Ingenious. These words describe the visionaries we all respect and admire. And they can describe you, too. Contrary to common belief, creativity is not a gift some of us are born with. It is a skill that all of us can learn. International bestselling author and award-winning Stanford University educator Tina Seelig has worked with some of the business world’s best and brightest, who are now among the decision-makers at companies such as Google, Genentech, IBM, and Cisco. In inGenius she expertly demystifies creativity, offering a set of tools and guidelines that anyone can use. A fantastic resource for everyone wanting to achieve their ambitions, and for readers of Jason Fried’s Rework, and Seth Godin’s Poke the Box.

A young Russian woman comes into her own in the midst of revolution and civil war in this "brilliant" novel set in "a world of furious beauty" (Los Angeles Review of Books). After the loves and betrayals of The Revolution of Marina M., young poet Marina Makarova finds herself alone amid the devastation of the Russian Civil War -- pregnant and adrift, forced to rely on her own resourcefulness to find a place to wait out the birth of her child and eventually make her way back to her native city, Petrograd. After two years of revolution, the city that was once St. Petersburg is almost unrecognizable, the haunted, half-emptied, starving Capital of Once Had Been, its streets teeming with homeless children. Moved by their plight, though hardly better off herself, she takes on the challenge of caring for these orphans, until they become the tool of tragedy from an unexpected direction. Shaped by her country's ordeals and her own trials -- betrayal and privation and inconceivable loss -- Marina evolves as a poet and a woman of sensibility and substance hardly imaginable at the beginning of her transformative odyssey. Chimes of a Lost Cathedral is the culmination of one woman's s journey through some of the most dramatic events of the last century -- the epic story of an artist who discovers her full power, passion, and creativity just as her revolution reveals its true direction for the future.

The legendary comedian, actor, and writer of Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, and A Fish Called Wanda fame shares his key ideas about creativity: that it’s a learnable, improvable skill. “Many people have written about creativity, but although they were very, very clever, they weren't actually creative. I like to think I'm writing about it from the inside.”—John Cleese You might think that creativity is some mysterious, rare gift—one that only a few possess. But you’d be wrong. As John Cleese shows in this short, practical, and often amusing guide, creativity is a skill that anyone can acquire. Drawing on his lifelong experience as a writer, Cleese shares his insights into the nature of creativity and offers advice on how to get your own inventive juices flowing. What do you need to do to get yourself in the right frame of mind? When do you know that you’ve come up with an idea that might be worth pursuing? What should you do if you think you’ve hit a brick wall? We can all be more creative. John Cleese shows us how.

Provides concrete guidance, grounded in scientific literature, for researchers to build creative confidence in their work.

In this book you'll learn how to: tap into your passion as a teacher - even when you're less than excited about the subject; develop creative presentations that capture your students' interest; establish rapport and a sense of camaraderie in your classroom; transform your class into a life-changing experience for your students. --from back cover.