Anthology for Creative Writers, An: A Garden of Forking Paths, 1st edition
Published by Pearson (February 15, 2006) © 2007
- Beth Anstandig
- Eric Killough
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For courses in creative writing.
A Garden of Forking Paths is an anthology of contemporary literature that covers the full spectrum of genre possibilities while exploring diverse styles, themes, experiences, and forms. The readings in this text inspire the emergence of innovative creative writing. In a multi-genre creative writing course, an instructor faces the dilemma of assigning several texts in order to offer good examples of writing in each genre. This text solves this problem by presenting large samplings of creative non-fiction, short fiction, poetry, alternative forms, and essays concerning craft.
Story: Beth Anstandig and Eric Killough, guided by fiction writer, essayist, and poet Robert Creeley's belief that all writing is essentially the act of articulation and that "form is content, content form," brought together as many successful examples of creative ideas and writing styles as possible in a single volume. They grouped these writings by genre for ease of use so that you can choose how you want to spend your reading time. From science fiction writer Philip K. Dick to naturalist Charles Bowden, you will find in the garden that each author has labored to articulate at least one of the seemingly infinite possibilities that the creative spirit can bring into being. Many of the authors in the text have successfully created works of written art using more than one genre. Beth Anstandig and Eric Killough created this text in hope that these examples will inspire your students to experiment in multiple genres as well.
Do you use a multi-genre approach in your course? Would you like a large sampling of writing in each genre all in one text?
- Anthology for Creative Writers uses a multi-genre approach. It covers the full spectrum of genre possibilities while exploring diverse styles, themes, experiences, and forms.
- Provides students with solid examples of many forms.
- Instructors do not have to assign multiple texts.
- Readings have been conscientiously chosen to offer plentiful good examples of writing in each genre (creative non-fiction, short fiction, poetry, experimental writing, and writing about writing).
- Innovative creative writing emerges when students are presented with readings that inspire them.
How do you demonstrate excellent creative writing to your students?
- Each section of the book begins with a highlighted piece of writing, called Quintessentials, that is exemplary in illustrating the capacity of the genre followed by a brief expository essay discussing the issues of craft and form.
- Provides students with valuable writing guidance.
- Writing exercises, Catalysts, at the beginning of each section.
- Enables students to perfect their creative writing skills.
- Light-handed pedagogical strategy.
- Since much of the classroom experience relies on the dynamic of the group, the workshop model, and the instructor's own artistic sensibilities, the authors kept pedagogy to a minimum and provided a vast array of quality reading selections.
Do you use a multi-genre approach in your course? Would you like a large sampling of writing in each genre all in one text?
- Anthology for Creative Writers uses a multi-genre approach. It covers the full spectrum of genre possibilities while exploring diverse styles, themes, experiences, and forms.
- Provides students with solid examples of many forms.
- Instructors do not have to assign multiple texts.
- Readings have been conscientiously chosen to offer plentiful good examples of writing in each genre (creative non-fiction, short fiction, poetry, experimental writing, and writing about writing).
- Innovative creative writing emerges when students are presented with readings that inspire them.
How do you demonstrate excellent creative writing to your students?
- Each section of the book begins with a highlighted piece of writing, called Quintessentials, that is exemplary in illustrating the capacity of the genre followed by a brief expository essay discussing the issues of craft and form.
- Provides students with valuable writing guidance.
- Writing exercises, Catalysts, at the beginning of each section.
- Enables students to perfect their creative writing skills.
- Light-handed pedagogical strategy.
- Since much of the classroom experience relies on the dynamic of the group, the workshop model, and the instructor's own artistic sensibilities, the authors kept pedagogy to a minimum and provided a vast array of quality reading selections.
Table of Contents
Section One
More Than Just the Truth: Creative Non-Fiction
I. Discussion of the Genre
II. A Quintessential: “The Undertaking” by Thomas Lynch
III. Reading Selections
Mitch Albom “The Ninth Tuesday: We Talk About How Love Goes On”
Dave Barry “Borrrinnng!”
Charles Bowden “Tortoises”
Bernard Cooper “101 Ways to Cook Hamburger”
Andre Dubus “A Woman in April”
Lars Eighner “Austin to Tucson: Hitting the Road”
Vivian Gornick from “Fierce Attachments”
Jim Harrison “Eat or Die”
Donald Hall “To Read Fiction”
Linda Hogan “Walking”
Nick Hornby “Home Debut”
Mary Karr from “The Liar’s Club”
Tony Kushner “American Things”
Ursula K. Le Guin “Winged: The Creatures on My Mind”
Barry Lopez “Children in the Woods”
Nancy Mairs “On Being a Cripple”
Chris Offutt from “The Same River Twice”
Sharman Apt Russell “Not a Butterfly”
David Sedaris “The Youth in Asia”
Sarah Vowell “Shooting Dad”
IV. Catalysts
1. The Autobiographical Object
2. Pushing a Metaphor to its Limits
3. Finding Humor in Heartache
Section Two
Telling Tales: Short Fiction
I. Discussion of the Genre
II. A Quintessential: “A Private Landscape”by Melissa Pritchard
III. Reading Selections
Kim Addonizio “In the Box Called Pleasure”
Sherman Alexie “Because My Father Always Said He Was the Only Indian Who Saw
Jimi Hendrix Play 'The Star-Spangled Banner' at Woodstock”
Donald Barthelme “A Shower of Gold”
Ron Carlson “Bigfoot Stole My Wife”/“I am Bigfoot”
Angela Carter “The Quilt Maker”
Michael Chabon “The Little Knife”
Philip K. Dick “Beyond Lies the Wub”
Chester Himes “Prediction”
Gish Jen “Who’s Irish?”
Denis Johnson “Work”
Doris Lessing “The Story of Two Dogs”
Susan Minot "Lust"
Walter Mosely "Pet Fly"
ZZ Packer “Brownie”
Grace Paley “Friends”
Francine Prose “Talking Dog”
Mark Richard “Strays”
Muriel Spark “The First Year of My Life”
John Updike “How Was it, Really?”
IV. Catalysts
1. Sitting on a Bench
2. A Fish out of Water
3. Mind Traveling: A Solitary Adventure
Section Three Making Lines: Poetry
I. Discussion of the Genre
II. A Quintessential:
“Thinking About the Poet Larry Levis One Afternoon in Late May” by Charles Wright
III. Reading Selections
Ralph Angel “Love’s That Simple”
Marvin Bell “These-Green-Going-to-Yellow”
Eavan Boland “This Moment”
David Bottoms “Under the Vulture-Tree”
Michael Burkard “I Entered a House”
Scott Cairns “Interval with Erato”
Hayden Carruth “Of Distress Being Humiliated by the Classical Chinese Poets”
Lucille Clifton “11/10 again”
Kwame Dawes “Libation”
Norman Dubie “For Randall Jarrell, 1914-1965”
Russell Edson “The Fall”
John Engman “The Building I Live in is Tipping Over”
Tess Gallagher “Each Bird Walking”
James Galvin “Against the Rest of the Year”
Jack Gilbert “Tear it Down”
Albert Goldbarth “This Cartography”
Beckian Fritz Goldberg “Being Pharoh”
Linda Gregg “The Letter”
Jim Harrison “Rooster”
Bob Hicok “AIDS”
Jane Hirshfield “The Kingdom”
Tony Hoagland “Jet”
Lynda Hull “Counting in Chinese”
David Ignatow “At eighty I change my view”
Denis Johnson “The Veil”
Carolyn Kizer “To an Unknown Poet”
Bill Knott “The Misunderstanding”
Ruth Ellen Kocher “Poem to a Jazz Man”
Yusef Komunyakaa “Believing in Iron”
Stanley Kunitz “Day of Foreboding”
Larry Levis “The Poem Returning as an Invisible Wren to the World”
Thomas Lux “The Man Inside the Chipmunk Suit”
Clarence Major “The Swine Who’s Eclipsed Me”
William Matthews “A Happy Childhood”
Christopher Merrill “Three Boats”
Jane Miller “Poetry”
Naomi Shihab Nye “Blood”
Adrienne Rich “Amends”
Tomaz Salamun “I Have a Horse”
Jeannine Savard “Transfer”
Dennis Schmitz “About Night”
Charles Simic “Dream Broker”
William Stafford “Not Very Loud”
Jean Valentine “Silences: A Dream of Governments”
Bruce Weigl “Anniversary of Myself”
David Wojahn “Cold Glow: Icehouses”
C. D. Wright “only the crossing counts”
Al Young “Desert Footage: Three Dissolves”
IV. Catalysts
1. In Search of the Image
2. The Narrative Poem
3. The Newspaper Poem
Section Four
Evolving Worlds and Disoriented Words: Experimental Writing
I. Discussion of the Genre
II. A Quintessential: “The Colonel” by Carolyn Forché
III. Reading Selections
Kim Adonizzio “Survivors”
Cathryn Alpert “That Changes Everything”
Tom Andrews “Cinema Verite”
Donald Barthelme “The Glass Mountain”
Michael Benedikt “The Meat Epitaph”
Kenneth Bernard “Sister Francetta and the Pig Baby”
Marilyn Chin “The True Story of Mr. and Mrs. Wong
Michael Chitwood “Hard Surface Road”
Lydia Davis “This Condition”
Stephen Dixon “Flying”
Russell Edson “Ape and Coffee”
Molly Giles “The Poet’s Husband”
Timothy Kelly “Babe Ruth Pointing”
Jamaica Kincaid “Girl”
Philip Levine “Travelling Music”
Gordon Lish “Fear: Four Examples”
Steve Martin “Cows in Trouble”
Michael McFee “The Halo”
E. Ethelbert Miller “Changing the Channel”
Rick Moody “Primary Sources”
Michael Ondaatje “7 or 8 Things I Know About Her -- A Stolen Biography”
Michael Palmer “A Word is Coming Up on the Screen …”
Francine Prose “Pumpkins”
Bruce Holland Rogers “Murder, Mystery”
Charles Simic from “Dimestore Alchemy”
Gary Snyder “The Ship in Yokohama”
Jerome Stern “Morning News”
James Tate “Distance from Loved Ones”
Beth Tornes “Sleep”
Charles Wright “The Poet Grows Older”
David Young “Four About Metaphysics”
IV. Catalysts
1. This is Just to Say: The Poem Disguised as a Letter
2. Interrupted Radio Broadcast: The Non-fiction Collage
3. In the Midst: Short-Shorts, Flash Fiction, and Prose Poems
Section Five
The Map Maker’s Unmade Map: Writing about Writing
I. Discussion of the Genre
II. A Quintessential: “Memory and the Imagination” by Patricia Hampl
III. Reading Selections
A. R. Ammons “A Poem is a Walk”
Richard Bausch “So Long Ago”
Charles Baxter “Shame and Forgetting in the Information Age”
Eavan Boland “Poetic Form: A Personal Encounter”
Jorges Luis Borges “Borges and I”
Jacob Bronowski “The Reach of Imagination”
Rosellen Brown “Don't Just Sit There:
Writing as a Polymorphous Perverse Pleasure”
Bernard Cooper “Marketing Memory”
Mark Doty from “Still Life with Oysters and Lemons”
Russell Edson “Portrait of the Writer as a Fat Man:
Some Subjective Ideas or Notions on the Care and Feeding of Prose Poems”
Donald Hall “Goatfoot, Milktongue and Twinbird”
Jane Hirshfield “Poetry and the Mind of Consciousness”
Richard Hugo “Writing Off the Subject”
Erica Jong “My Grandmother on my Shoulder”
William Matthews “A Note on Prose, Verse and the Line”
Thomas McGrath “Language, Power, and Dream”
Roger Rosenblatt “I Am Writing Blindly”
Michael Ryan “Tell Me a Story”
William Stafford “A Way of Writing”
Luisa Valenzuela “Writing with the Body”
IV. Catalysts
1. Gift Memories: A Meditative Essay on the Recollection of Borrowed Images
2. The First House of Memory: Images in Hiding
3. I and I: Addressing the Self
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