A book-length poem that brilliantly reinvents narrative poetry, The Diviners is a single poem divided into five chapters, each a different decade. McDowell relates the most crucial developments in each decade spanning from the 1950s through 1990s, of the shared lives of Al, Eleanor, and their son, Tom. The Diviners records in blank verse the family’s beginnings, their growth, their problems, their separation, and their ultimate reunion. The events that follow the intertwi...

The poet’s first full-length collection, Quiet Money's New Edition consists almost exclusively of longer narrative poems, including the title poem about a bootlegger/pilot who flew the Atlantic solo before Charles Lindbergh. This piece is often cited as one of the most important poems of the 1980s and the movement to revive storytelling in verse.

This is a coming-of-age novel in which Emily Dickinson & Virginia Woolf return to this world and join forces to protect & assist a young woman artist, Lily, as she grows into her full power in love & work. Artfully written to appeal to adults and younger readers of serious literary fiction, the story takes place almost entirely in Ashland, Oregon and features appearances by several of the leg-endary Bloomsbury group, including Virginia's sister, Vanessa Bell and husband, Leonard, as well a...

Robert McDowell’s poems over the last 35 years are widely recognized as major achievements in reviving narrative and consistently striving to cre-ate, as poet and critic Chad Abushanab writes in his Introduction, “the song in the story”. McDow-ell in poetry also embraces Emily Dickinson’s call to engage “Internal difference/Where the mean-ings, are”. McDowell’s poems appear widely in magazines, journals, newspapers, anthologies and earlier collections.

Haiku: How To Write It in Minutes is the perfect guide for the would-be Haiku writer. This enduring Japanese form comes to life in poet and teacher Robert McDowell's crisp and inspiring poetry manual, one of several in his Forms of Poetry Series. Beginning with the case for writing poetry in traditional form, McDowell wastes no time introducing the reader to the specific requirements of Haiku. He follows this with a variety of excellent examples that lead to playful writing exercises desig...

Mark Twain said, "The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small, manageable tasks, and then starting on that first one." That's exactly what poet and teacher Robert McDowell does for readers of this terrific Guide to solving the problem of writer's block once and for all. He does this with ten easy steps and fun exercises that are effective, charming and readily understandable. If you want to write, if ...

Before I Pray, the first book in the Kevin Killgallen Mystery Series, introduces a spiritual gumshoe with street smarts and sass still intact. Born of the traditions of Chandler, Hammett, Spillane, Sayers, Gardner and Leonard, Los Angeles P.I. Kevin Killgallen seeks to find in his torrid life of adventure, danger and self-destructive choices the seeds of a spiritual practice that can bring him peace and greater balance. Yet, even as he enrolls and participates in classes in Tibetan Buddhis...

Sonnets are among the most admired and daunting poems in the English language. In his Sonnets: How To Write Them in Minutes, noted poet and teacher Robert McDowell flawlessly explains and demonstrates the characteristics of the English, Italian and Spenserian sonnets and provides excellent examples of each one. His insightful, playful exercises, or writing prompts, encourage reader/writer participation in the most positive ways. In very little time, the diligent reader will be creating her...

A collection of 108 haiku poems to heighten awareness and deepen our appreciation for the ordinary in everyday lifeHaiku, the Japanese form of poetry written in just three lines, can be miraculous in its power to articulate the profundity of the simplest moment—and for that reason haiku can be a useful tool for bringing us to a heightened awareness of our lives.Here, the poet Patricia Donegan shares her experience of the haiku form as a way of insight that ...

The first anthology to map the full range of haiku in the English tradition.Haiku in English is an anthology of more than 800 brilliantly chosen poems that were originally written in English by over 200 poets from around the world. Although haiku originated as a Japanese art form, it has found a welcome home in the English-speaking world. This collection tells the story for the first time of Anglophone haiku, charting its evolution over the last one hundre...

The ancient oracle system of the I Ching has guided wisdom seekers for over 5,000 years. Now those seeking insights and motivation can take advantage of these ancient predictions, recast by writing professor Sarah Jane Sloane into suggestions for contemporary writers. Each of the I Ching’s sixty-four hexagrams, interpreted by Sloane from years of study and comparisons of over fifty translations, offers directions and comments about what the future will hold for the writer. In addition to t...

Liespotting shows how to use the latest techniques to spot deception in work and life situations.GET TO THE TRUTHPeople--friends, family members, work colleagues, salespeople--lie to us all the time. Daily, hourly, constantly. None of us is immune, and all of us are victims. According to studies by several different researchers, most of us encounter nearly 200 lies a day.Now there's something we can do about it. Pamela Meye...