This indispensable anthology brings together works from fifty contemporary writers including Cheryl Strayed, David Sedaris, Barbara Kingsolver, and more. Selected by five hundred writers, English professors, and creative writing teachers from across the country, this collection includes only the most highly regarded nonfiction work published since 1970—from memoir to journalism, personal essays to cultural criticism. Contributors include: Jo Ann Beard, Wendell Berry, Eula Biss, Mary Clearman Blew, Charles Bowden, Janet Burroway, Kelly Grey Carlisle, Anne Carson, Bernard Cooper, Michael W. Cox, Annie Dillard, Mark Doty, Brian Doyle, Tony Earley, Anthony Farrington, Harrison Candelaria Fletcher, Diane Glancy, Lucy Grealy, William Harrison, Robin Hemley, Adam Hochschild, Jamaica Kincaid, Barbara Kingsolver, Ted Kooser, Sara Levine, E. J. Levy, Phillip Lopate, Barry Lopez, Thomas Lynch, Lee Martin, Rebecca McClanahan, Erin McGraw, John McPhee, Brenda Miller, Dinty W. Moore, Kathleen Norris, Naomi Shihab Nye, Lia Purpura, Richard Rhodes, Bill Roorbach, David Sedaris, Richard Selzer, Sue William Silverman, Floyd Skloot, Lauren Slater, Cheryl Strayed, Amy Tan, Ryan Van Meter, David Foster Wallace, and Joy Williams.

Fifty remarkable short stories from a range of contemporary fiction authors including Junot Diaz, Amy Tan, Jamaica Kincaid, Jhumpa Lahiri, and more, selected from a survey of more than five hundred English professors, short story writers, and novelists. Contributors include Russell Banks, Donald Barthelme, Rick Bass, Richard Bausch, Charles Baxter, Amy Bloom, T.C. Boyle, Kevin Brockmeier, Robert Olen Butler, Sandra Cisneros, Peter Ho Davies, Janet Desaulniers, Junot Diaz, Anthony Doerr, Stuart Dybek, Deborah Eisenberg, Richard Ford, Mary Gaitskill, Dagoberto Gilb, Ron Hansen, A.M. Homes, Mary Hood, Denis Johnson, Edward P. Jones, Thom Jones, Jamaica Kincaid, Jhumpa Lahiri, David Leavitt, Kelly Link, Reginald McKnight, David Means, Susan Minot , Rick Moody, Bharati Mukherjee, Antonya Nelson, Joyce Carol Oates, Tim O’Brien, Daniel Orozco, Julie Orringer, ZZ Packer, Annie Proulx, Stacey Richter, George Saunders, Joan Silber, Leslie Marmon Silko, Susan Sontag, Amy Tan, Melanie Rae Thon, Alice Walker, and Steve Yarbrough.

This textbook takes a new approach to teaching creative writing that centers the concerns of multicultural students. It focuses on the experiences of those who wish to write through their diverse identities, including ethnic, cultural, racial, national, regional, and international identity as well as gender identity, sexual preference, class position, and disability. Combining the study of culturally diverse literature with the process of writing, students are encouraged to engage with various texts and to use them to inspire their own work. Organized around a series of writing prompts and discussions of literary readings that address identity, place, perception, family, community, encounters, inheritance, and resistance, this book offers both writers and teachers a way to engage with the practice of writing from a multicultural perspective.

The University of Iowa is a leading light in the writing world. In addition to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop for poets and fiction writers, it houses the prestigious Nonfiction Writing Program (NWP), which was the first full-time masters-granting program in this genre in the United States. Over the past three decades the NWP has produced some of the most influential nonfiction writers in the country. I’ll Tell You Mine is an extraordinary anthology, a book rooted in Iowa’s successful program that goes beyond mere celebration to present some of the best nonfiction writing of the past thirty years. Eighteen pieces produced by Iowa graduates exemplify the development of both the program and the field of nonfiction writing. Each is accompanied by commentary from the author on a challenging issue presented by the story and the writing process, including drafting, workshopping, revising, and listening to (or sometimes ignoring) advice. The essays are put into broader context by a prologue from Robert Atwan, founding editor of the Best American Essays series, who details the rise of nonfiction as a literary genre since the New Journalism of the 1960s. Creative nonfiction is the fastest-growing writing concentration in the country, with more than one hundred and fifty programs in the United States. I’ll Tell You Mine shows why Iowa’s leads the way. Its insider’s view of the Iowa program experience and its wealth of groundbreaking nonfiction writing will entertain readers and inspire writers of all kinds.

A dazzling anthology of essays by some of the best writers of the past quarter century—from Barry Lopez and Margo Jefferson to David Sedaris and Samantha Irby—selected by acclaimed essayist Phillip Lopate. The first decades of the twenty-first century have witnessed a blossoming of creative nonfiction. In this extraordinary collection, Phillip Lopate gathers essays by forty-seven of America’s best contemporary writers, mingling long-established eminences with newer voices and making room for a wide variety of perspectives and styles. The Contemporary American Essay is a monument to a remarkably adaptable form and a treat for anyone who loves fantastic writing. Hilton Als • Nicholson Baker • Thomas Beller • Sven Birkerts • Eula Biss • Mary Cappello • Anne Carson • Terry Castle • Alexander Chee • Teju Cole • Bernard Cooper • Sloane Crosley • Charles D’Ambrosio • Meghan Daum • Brian Doyle • Geoff Dyer • Lina Ferreira • Lynn Freed • Rivka Galchen • Ross Gay • Louise Glück • Emily Fox Gordon • Patricia Hampl • Aleksandar Hemon • Samantha Irby • Leslie Jamison • Margo Jefferson • Laura Kipnis • David Lazar • Yiyun Li • Phillip Lopate • Barry Lopez • Thomas Lynch • John McPhee • Ander Monson • Eileen Myles • Maggie Nelson • Meghan O’Gieblyn • Joyce Carol Oates • Darryl Pinckney • Lia Purpura • Karen Russell • David Sedaris • Shifra Sharlin • David Shields • Floyd Skloot • Rebecca Solnit • Clifford Thompson • Wesley Yang An Anchor Original.

Bringing together a diverse range of writers, The Science of Story is the first book to ask the question: what can contemporary brain science teach us about the art and craft of creative nonfiction writing? Drawing on the latest developments in cognitive neuroscience the book sheds new light on some of the most important elements of the writer's craft, from perspective and truth to emotion and metaphor. The Science of Story explores such questions as: · Why do humans tell stories? · How do we remember and misremember our lives - and what does this mean for storytelling? · What is the value of writing about trauma? · How do stories make us laugh, or cry, make us angry or triumphant? Contributors: Nancer Ballard, Mike Branch, Frank Bures, J.T. Bushnell, Katharine Coles, Christopher Cokinos, Alison Hawthorne Deming, David Lazar, Lawrence Lenhart, Alan Lightman, Dave Madden, Jessica Hendry Nelson, Richard Powers, Sean Prentiss, Julie Wittes Schlack, Valerie Sweeney Prince, Ira Sukrungruang, Nicole Walker, Wendy S. Walters, Marco Wilkinson, Amy Wright.

A mystical system for harnessing divine inspiration in your writing • Explains how the 10 sefirot—the channels of divine creative life force—can be used to develop writing and give you the power to grow as a person and a writer • Explores each sefira in detail and how it can be used to manifest creative visions through words • Provides writing exercises and imaginative techniques to help you receive the mystical wisdom of the Kabbalah, develop your creative powers, and open yourself to inspiration from the divine Revealing how the ancient spiritual tradition known as the Kabbalah can be applied to the art of writing, award-winning author Sherri Mandell presents a mystical system for developing creativity and harnessing divine inspiration in your storytelling and other written works. Sharing insight from her own spiritual journey and her years of teaching writing, Mandell explains how the characteristics of the 10 sefirot—the channels of divine creative life force that make up the elemental spiritual structure of the world—can be used to think about and develop writing in a profound way and give you the power to grow as a person and a writer. She explores each sefira in detail and how it can be used to manifest creative visions through words. Showing how writing can be healing and redemptive, she provides writing exercises and imaginative techniques to help you create a writing practice that allows you to appreciate the richness of life, retrieve its divine beauty, and share your unique wisdom. By unveiling how writing can become a spiritual path, a pilgrimage to discover the sacred stories within, Mandell shows that sharing your inner truth and expressing your personal gifts of imagination through writing is part of your individual spiritual mission as well as an essential part of the spiritual evolution of the world.