Edited by Robert Pack & Jay Parini
University Press of New England/Middlebury College Press, 1991
A celebration of the act and the art of writing for practitioners, teachers, and readers by 25 established poets and fiction writers.
"We give ourselves over to what is by nature mysterious, imagining the unknowable, and then miraculously knowing by virtue of what is imagined," writes Tim O'Brien. From deeply personal perspectives, he and two dozen other established writers ponder the mystery of their art and such fundamentals as: What is a genuine writing impulse? Why does good writing work? How is writing learned? What is the role of craft and technique? Who is meant to be a writer? How is close reading related to good writing? The volume is peppered with critical perspectives and practical advice, yet its special richness and inspiration lie in the wonderment and deep love for the act of writing expressed by each contributor. Each essay is a joy to read, blending storytelling literary anecdotes gathered from a lifetime of avid reading and the kind of shoptalk exchanged between colleagues. Writers will find here camaraderie and encouragement, teachers of writing will hear practical testimony to what works, and readers will come away with a renewed awe for the spell cast by good writing.
Foreword
Marvin Bell
Three Propositions: Hooey, Dewey, and Loony
Rosellen Brown
Don't just Sit There: Writing as a Polymorphous Perverse Pleasure
Nicholas Delbanco
Judgment: An Essay
Stanley Elkin
What's in a Name?
Richard Ford
Reading
Gail Godwin
A Diarist on Diarists
David Huddle
Taking What You Need, Giving What You Can: The Writer as Student and Teacher
T. R. Hummer
Against Metaphor
John Irving
Getting Started
Erica Jong
My Grandmother on My Shoulder
Donald justice
The Prose Sublime: Or, the Deep Sense of Things Belonging Together, Inexplicably
Sydney Lea
Making a Case: Or, "Where Are You Coming From?"
Philip Levine
Excerpts from a journal
William Matthews
Part of the Problem
Paul Mariani
The Soul of Brevity
Joyce Carol Oates
Beginnings
Tim O'Brien
The Magic Show
Robert Pack
On Wording
Jay Parini
On Being Prolific
Linda Pastan
Writing about Writing
Francine Prose
Learning from Chekhov
Lynne Sharon Schwartz
Remembrance of Tense Past
Ellen Bryant Voigt
On Tone
Nancy Willard
Close Encounters of the Story Kind
Hilma Wolitzer
Twenty Questions