Table of Contents

Introduction

The Writers and Their Essays
ANDRE ACIMAN
Aciman on Writing: "A Literary Pilgrim Progresses to the Past"
"The Capital of Memory"
"A Late Lunch"
"Shadow Cities"

RICK BASS
Bass on Writing: "Without Safety: Writing Nonfiction"
"On Willow Creek"
"Why I Hunt: A Predator's Meditation"
"Thunder and Lightning"

JOAN DIDION
Didion on Writing: "Why I Write"
"The Women's Movement"
"In Bogota"
"Girl of the Golden West"

ANNIE DILLARD
Dillard on Writing: from The Writing Life, Chapter One
"Total Eclipse"
"Teaching a Stone to Talk"
"Spring"

BARBARA EHRENREICH
Ehrenreich on Writing: "Introduction"
"Stamping Out a Dread Scourge"
"Premature Pragmatism"
"Oh, Those Family Values"

JOSEPH EPSTEIN
Epstein on Writing: "Compose Yourself"
"A Mere Journalist"
"The Art of the Nap"
"Penography"

HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR.
Gates on Writing: "Writing, 'Race,' and the Difference It Makes"
"Sunday"
"In the Kitchen"
"Prime Time"

STEPHEN JAY GOULD
Gould on Writing: "Pieces of Eight: Confession of a Humanistic Naturalist"
"The Creation Myths of Cooperstown"
"A Cerion for Christopher"
"The Great Western and the Fighting Temeraire"

EDWARD HOAGLAND
Hoagland on Writing: "To the Point: Truth Only Essays Can Tell"
"The Courage of Turtles"
"In Okefenokee"
"Learning to Eat Soup"

bell hooks
hooks on Writing: "Women who Write Too Much"
"Black Women Writing"
"Touching the Earth"
"Justice: Childhood Love Lessons"

JAMAICA KINCAID
Kincaid on Writing: "Writing = Life"
"In History"
"Alien Soil"
"Garden of Envy"

URSULA LE GUIN
Le Guin on Writing: "Prospects for Women in Writing"
"The Fisherwoman's Daughter"
"The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction"
"Along the Platte"

BARRY LOPEZ
Lopez on Writing: "We are Shaped by the Sound of the Wind, the Slant of
Sunlight"
"The Stone Horse"
"Apologia"
"A Presentation of Whales"

CYNTHIA OZICK
Ozick on Writing: "On Permission to Write"
"The Hole/Birth Catalog"
"A Drugstore in Winter"
"Rushdie in the Louvre"

SALMAN RUSHDIE
Rushdie on Writing: "Imaginary Homelands"
"The Riddle of Midnight: India, August 1987"
"Censorship"
"In Good Faith"

EDWARD SAID
Said on Writing: "On Writing a Memoir"
"No Reconciliation Allowed"
"Palestine, Then and Now: An Exile's Journey through Israel and the Occupied
Territories"
"The Mind of Winter: Reflections on Life in Exile"

SCOTT RUSSELL SANDERS
Sanders on Writing: "The Singular First Person"
"Writing from the Center"
"Letter to a Reader"
"Buckeye"

AMY TAN
Tan on Writing: " Lost Lives of Women"
"Mother Tongue"
"The Language of Discretion"
"Required Reading and Other Dangerous Subjects"

JOHN UPDIKE
Updike on Writing: "Why Write?"
"Cemeteries"
"Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Masters"
"The Tarbox Police"

ALICE WALKER
Walker on Writing: "The Black Writer and the Southern Experience"
"In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens"
"My Daughter Smokes"
"Beyond the Peacock: The Reconstruction of Flannery O'Connor"

EDWARD O. WILSON
Wilson on Writing: "The Writing Life"
"The Serpent"
"Ethics and Religion"
"Humanity Seen from a Distance"

The Student Writers on Writing
Sarah Huntley, "Before Beginning"
Monique Fournier, "Bees and Fears: Why I Write"
Melvin Sterne, Untitled
Kathe McAllister, "Blue Sky and Gravel: Where There is no Plot"
Heidi Beck, "Why I Write"
Spencer Schaffner, "The Five-Paragraph Essay: Friend or Foe?"
Marianne Rasmussen, "The Selfish Art: Exploring Identity Through Writing"

Appendix, RESOURCES FOR ESSAY WRITERS

Index of Authors and Titles