Mignon McLaughlin was a short story writer and playwright with a rapier wit and an acerbic take on love, marriage, and friendship. Her aphorisms, published between 1958 and 1966, will appeal to everyone who appreciates this aristocratic, subversive genre. Not all of the collection consists of aphorisms, strictly speaking: some are simply reflections, brutally honest as they are clever, on McLaughlin’s own fears and foibles. Aperçus is an autobiography in epigrams of a shrewd, candid, and e...

A special 10th anniversary edition of Roy Peter Clark's bestselling guide to writing, featuring five bonus tools.Ten years ago, Roy Peter Clark, America's most influential writing teacher, whittled down almost thirty years of experience in journalism, writing, and teaching into a series of fifty short essays on different aspects of writing. In the past decade, Writing Tools has become a classic guidebook for novices and experts alike and remains one of the...

The classic for serious fiction writers: "The book is the result of John Gardner's twenty-odd years of teaching experience, and it shows" (Anne Tyler).In this essential guide, John Gardner advises the aspiring fiction author on such topics as the value of creative writing workshops, the developmental stages of literary growth, and the inevitable experience of writer's block. Drawn from his two decades of experience in creative writing, Gardner balances his compassio...

The celebrated author of The Group offers a "clever, witty, polished" portrait of the 1940s NYC literary bohemia she knew so well in this debut novel ( The New York Times).Margaret Sargent is young and fearless, a deep thinker inspired by the bohemian energy that abounds in New York City in the years leading up to the Second World War. With careless abandon, she destroys her marriage and numerous love affairs as she moves through the social circle...

“Still Writing offers up a cornucopia of wisdom, insights, and practical lessons gleaned from Dani Shapiro's long experience as a celebrated writer and teacher of writing. The beneficiaries are beginning writers, veteran writers and everyone in between.”—Jennifer EganFrom Dani Shapiro, bestselling author of Devotion and Slow Motion, comes a witty, heartfelt, and practical look at the exhilarating and challenging process of storytelling. A...

Shimmering with her unique style, sense, humour, vision and wit, Startle and Illuminate is a book of advice and reflections on writing by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Carol Shields that is destined to become as valued and essential as Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft and Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.An essential work from one of Canada's finest writers, Startle and Illuminate ...

A truly unforgettable story is defined by its characters. Their motivations, their changes, their actions compel us to read on, anxiously trying to discern what will happen next.In Dynamic Characters, award-winning author and Writer's Digest columnist Nancy Kress explores the fundamental relationship between characterization and plot, illustrating how vibrant, well-constructed characters act as the driving force behind an exceptional story.Kress balances h...

In the wee hours of the night, when inspiration strikes unexpectedly, don't let it slip away.If you write, you know what it's like. Insight and creativity—the desire to push the boundaries of your writing—strike when you least expect it. And you're often in no position to act: in the shower, driving the kids to school...in the middle of the night.The 3 A.M. Epiphany offers more than 200 intriguing writing exercises designed to help you think, write...

The first graphic novel—a mesmerizing fictional chronicle of a universal American experience.Through a quartet of four interwoven stories, A Contract With God express the joy, exuberance, tragedy, and drama of life on the mythical Dropsie Avenue in the Bronx. This is the legendary book that launched a new art form and reaffirmed Will Eisner as one of the great pioneers of American graphics.

New in the Short History of Asia series edited by Milton Osborne this is a concise and readable history of Cambodia from its rich and powerful past through the era of French protection the Vietnamese conflict the Pol Pot regime and to its present day incarnation as a constitutional monarchy and popular tourist destination. Temples and killing fields mighty rivers and impenetrable forests a past filled with glory and decline Cambodia is a land of contrasts. A millennia ago it was an empire ...

Perfectly balanced between humor and erudition, Ex Libris establishes Anne Fadiman as one of our finest contemporary essayists.Anne Fadiman is--by her own admission--the sort of person who learned about sex from her father's copy of Fanny Hill, whose husband buys her 19 pounds of dusty books for her birthday, and who once found herself poring over her roommate's 1974 Toyota Corolla manual because it was the only written material in the apartment that she h...

Poet, novelist, author of the Seth Material, Jane Roberts's books have sold over 7.5 million copies. She was one of the most important psychics of the twentieth century. Now, Speaking of Jane Roberts reveals a woman as fascinating as the material she produced.Susan Watkins and Jane Roberts were friends for sixteen years. Early on, Seth, the entity who spoke through Roberts, told the two women that they were counterparts, connected in this particular lifetime to work out so...