"A Kite in the Wind: Twenty Fiction Writers on Their Craft" is an anthology of essays by twenty veteran writers and master teachers. While the contributors offer specific, practical advice on such fundamental aspects of craft as characterization, character names, the first person point of view, and unreliable narrators, they also give extended, thoughtful consideration to more sophisticated topics, including "imminence," or the power of a sense of beginning; creating and maintaining tension; "lushness"; and the deliberate manipulation of information to create particular effects. The essays in "A Kite in the Wind" begin as personal investigations--attempts to understand why a decision in a particular story or novel seemed unsuccessful; to define a quality or problem that seemed either unrecognized or unsatisfactorily defined; to understand what, despite years of experience as a fiction writer, resisted comprehension; and to pursue haunting, even unanswerable questions. Unlike a how-to book, the anthology is less an instruction manual than it is an intimate visit with twenty very different writers as they explore topics that excite, intrigue, and even puzzle them. Each discussion uses specific examples and illustrations, including both canonical stories and novels and writing less frequently discussed, from the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries, by both American and international authors. The contributors share their hard-earned insights for beginning and advanced writers with humility, wit, and compassion. The first section of the book focuses on narration, with particular attention paid to various kinds of narrators; the second, on strategic creation and presentation of character; the third, on some of the roles of the visual, beginning with establishing setting; and the fourth, on structural and organizational issues, from movement through time to the manipulation of information to create mystery and suspense. The contributors have all been on the faculty of the low-residency MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, widely considered the finest creative writing graduate program of its type in the world. They have nearly all been fellows of the National Endowment for the Arts, and many have received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. The anthology includes directors of some of the country's finest MFA creative writing programs, including those at the University of Iowa, Arizona State University, and the University of Alabama.

Maps of the Imagination takes us on a magic carpet ride over terrain both familiar and exotic. Using the map as a metaphor, fiction writer Peter Turchi considers writing as a combination of exploration and presentation, all the while serving as an erudite and charming guide. He compares the way a writer leads a reader though the imaginary world of a story, novel, or poem to the way a mapmaker charts the physical world. "To ask for a map," says Turchi, "is to say, ‘Tell me a story.’ "With intelligence and wit, the author looks at how mapmakers and writers deal with blank space and the blank page; the conventions they use or consciously disregard; the role of geometry in maps and the parallel role of form in writing; how both maps and writing serve to re-create an individual’s view of the world; and the artist’s delicate balance of intuition with intention.A unique combination of history, critical cartography, personal essay, and practical guide to writing, Maps of the Imagination is a book for writers, for readers, and for anyone interested in creativity. Colorful illustrations and Turchi’s insightful observations make his book both beautiful and a joy to read.

A collection of short stories by twenty-five notable authors is accompanied by each writer's essay on the challenges of the story and the process of writing, with contributions by Charles Baxter, Margot Livesey, Jim Shepard, Robert Boswell, David Shields, Antonya Nelson, and others. Original. 13,000 first printing.

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Eleven stories depict ordinary people of all ages trying to make the right decision in difficult, and unexpected circumstances

The author describes his lifelong fascination with discovering the wreckage of the Whydah, a ship that sank off of Cape Cod in 1717, and his ultimate discovery of the ship's treasure, estimated at $400 million. 40,000 first printing.

Product Description: I beg to differ with the Publishers Weekly review. This is a beautifully written book. I found I would have to put it down periodically, to make sure I took the time to appreciate the flow of the story. There is a wonderful tension between the direction you think the story is going to go, and where it takes you in the end...read more