True Stories, Well Told


Book Description

Creative nonfiction is the literary equivalent of jazz: it’s a rich mix of flavors, ideas, voices, and techniques—some newly invented, and others as old as writing itself. This collection of 20 gripping, beautifully-written nonfiction narratives is as diverse as the genre Creative Nonfiction magazine has helped popularize. Contributions by Phillip Lopate, Brenda Miller, Carolyn Forche, Toi Derricotte, Lauren Slater and others draw inspiration from everything from healthcare to history, and from monarch butterflies to motherhood. Their stories shed light on how we live.




Dad Says He Saw You at the Mall


Book Description

A wonderful debut, this funny yet sad novel recounts a young man's attempt--as father, husband, and son--to put together the pieces of an ordinary, and at the same time, very puzzling life.




Creative Nonfiction


Book Description

The very best writing from one of America’s most groundbreaking literary magazines. When Creative Nonfiction debuted in 1994, the literary genre it championed was largely the target of skepticism or downright ridicule. But at a time when few editors were interested in the personal essay, the magazine doggedly explored new ideas and fresh modes of expression, and over the next three decades, its contributors pioneered what would come to be known as the “fourth genre.” The thirty-two essays collected here bring together some of the finest work Creative Nonfiction published over its seventy-eight issues. Read Pulitzer Prize-winner Charles Simic’s boyhood remembrances of the bombing of Belgrade, Carolyn Forche’s haunting, lyric catalog of her daily life as she faced down a cancer diagnosis, and John Edgar Wideman’s meditation on the photo of a murdered boy his same age—Emmett Till—and how the image haunted him forever. Here, you'll find work by such luminaries as Adrienne Rich and John McPhee, but also essays from more contemporary voices like Brian Broome, Elizabeth Fortescue, and Anne McGrath. With an introduction by Lee Gutkind, Creative Nonfiction’s founder and editor, this collection captures the evolution of a genre and the amazing work of the little magazine that helped make it all happen.




Hooked


Book Description

Get Hooked on a Girl Named Fred… He said: Fred Oday is a girl? Puh-leeze. Why is a girl taking my best friend’s spot on the boys’ varsity golf team? She said: Can I seriously do this? Can I join the boys’ team? Everyone will hate me—especially Ryan Berenger. He said: Coach expects me to partner with Fred on the green? That is crazy bad. Fred’s got to go—especially now that I can’t get her out of my head. So not happening. She said: Ryan can be nice, when he’s not being a jerk. Like the time he carried my golf bag. But the girl from the rez and the spoiled rich boy from the suburbs? So not happening.




Girl Meets Ghost


Book Description

A tween girl becomes a reluctant medium in this start to a hilariously haunting series. Kendall Williams sees dead people. Not only can she see them, she can speak to them…and they can speak to her. It’s that last little detail that really causes all kinds of problems. The dead don’t have much in the way of boundaries, and they tend to pop up whenever—and wherever—they please. They want Kendall to help them move on by resolving any remaining issues from when they were alive. Unfortunately, they’re not too great at explaining what those issues might be, so Kendall has to become a sort of psychic sleuth and figure it out for them. This time around, there’s a really annoying blonde gymnast who can’t stop popping up at the worst moments and demanding that Kendall help her. If Kendall doesn’t want people to think she’s crazy and always talking to herself, she’ll have to get busy and get rid of this perky pest. Then she can go back to crushing on the cute boy in her math class. And that’s a whole other problem…




Conversations with Gordon Lish


Book Description

Known as "Captain Fiction," Gordon Lish (b. 1934) is among the most influential--and controversial--figures in modern American letters. As an editor at Esquire (1969-1977), Alfred A. Knopf (1977-1994), and The Quarterly (1987-1995) and as a teacher both in and outside the university system, he has worked closely with many of the most pioneering writers of recent times, including Raymond Carver, Don DeLillo, Barry Hannah, Amy Hempel, Sam Lipsyte, and Ben Marcus. A prolific author of stories and novels, Lish has also won a cult following for his own fiction, earning comparisons with Gertrude Stein and Samuel Beckett. Conversations with Gordon Lish collects all of Lish's major interviews, covering the entire span of his extraordinary career. Ranging from 1965 to 2015, these interviews document his pivotal role in the period's defining developments: the impact of the Californian counterculture, the rise and decline of so-called literary "minimalism," dramatic transformations in book and magazine publishing, and the ongoing growth of creative writing instruction. Over time, Lish--a self-described "dynamic conversationalist"-- forges an evolving conversation not only with his interviewers, but with the central trends of twentieth-century literary history. This book will be essential reading not only for students and fans of contemporary fiction, but for writers too: included are several interviews in which Lish discusses his legendary writing classes. Indeed, these pieces themselves amount to a masterclass in Lishian literary language--each is a work of art in its own right.




Scorch Atlas


Book Description

In this striking novel-in-stories, a series of strange apocalypses have hit America. Entire neighborhoods drown in mud, glass rains from the sky, birds speak gibberish, and parents of young children disappear. Millions starve while others grow coats of mold. But a few are able to survive and find a light in the aftermath, illuminating what we've become. In ''the Disappeared,''a father is arrested for missing free throws, leaving his son to search alone for his lost mother. A boy swells to fill his parents' ransacked attic in ''the Ruined Child.'' Rendered in a variety of narrative forms, from a psychedelic fable to a skewed insurance claim questionnaire, Blake Butler's full-length fiction debut paints a gorgeously grotesque version of America, bringing to mind both Kelly Link and William H. Gass, yet imbued with Butler's own vision of the apocalyptic and bizarre.




This Poem Is a House


Book Description

From accomplished writer Ken Sparling comes a spare verse novel about a girl and a boy and the life they're writing together. But the girl wants a story and the boy wants a poem, and the furniture in the house is stuck in the middle. Meditative and magical, a book as complicated as the ways we love, This Poem Is a House is, in the end, about a girl's story sheltering a boy's poem, the way a house shelters the lives of the people who live in it. Ken Sparling has written six novels, including Dad Says He Saw You at the Mall (Knopf, 1996), commissioned by Gordon Lish. He lives in Toronto, Ontario.




The Pall Mall Magazine


Book Description