Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- An Introduction: Emblems of Talent -- Part I: Seven Essays -- Teaching/Writing -- Thickening the Plot -- Characters -- On Pure Storytelling -- Of Doubts and Dreams -- After Almost No Time at All the String on Which He Had Been Pulling and Pulling Came Apart into Two Separate Pieces So Quickly He Hardly Realized It Had Snapped, or: Reflections on "The Beach Fire" -- Some Notes for the Intermediate and Advanced Creative Writing Student -- Part II: Four Letters -- Letter to P- -- Letter to Q- -- Letter to R- -- Letter to S- -- Part III: Five Interviews -- A Paradoxa Interview: Experimental Writing/Texts & Questions -- An American Literary History Interview: The Situation of American Writing Today -- A Poetry Project Newsletter Interview: A Silent Interview -- A Black Clock Interview -- A Paradoxa Interview: Inside and Outside the Canon -- Appendix: Nits, Nips, Tucks, and Tips -- Name, Date, Place -- Read Widely -- Grammar and Parts of Speech -- Sentences -- Punctuating Dialogue -- A Final Note on Dialogue -- Apostrophes -- Dramatic Structure -- Excitement, Drama, Suspense, Surprise, Violence -- Point of View -- First Person -- Trust Your Image -- Write What You Know -- About the Author.