Literary Craft

Distinguished author Phillip Lopate, editor of the celebrated anthology The Art of the Personal Essay, is universally acclaimed as “one of our best personal essayists” ( Dallas Morning News). Here, combining more than 40 years of lessons from his storied career as a writer and professor, he brings us this highly anticipated nuts-and-bolts guide to writing literary nonfiction. A phenomenal master class shaped by Lopate’s informative, accessible tone, and immense gift for storytelling.

With passion and wit, Mary Oliver skillfully imparts expertise from her long, celebrated career as a disguised poet. She walks listeners through exactly how a poem is built, from meter and rhyme, to form and diction, to sound and sense, drawing on poems by Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, and others. This handbook is an invaluable glimpse into Oliver’s prolific mind—a must-have for all poetry-lovers.

During an early morning feeding for her four-month-old twins, Meg Langslow hears an odd noise and goes downstairs to find her living room filled with dozens of animals. She soon learns that financial woes have caused the local animal shelter to repeal its no-kill policy. Her kind-hearted father, her zoologist grandfather, and other like-minded citizens have stolen all the shelter animals, both as a gesture of protest and to protect them until the hated policy can be repealed. But the volunteer who was transporting animals to new homes has been murdered.

Textbook writer Suzie Tuft discovers a body near her rural home and learns he was an attorney from the estate of her deceased ex-boyfriend, who bequeathed her a small fortune. Suzie's life is thrown into chaos when she is threatened by the ex's crazy live-in girlfriend and his unsavory friends looking to recover nearly a million dollars from a con they executed him. Fortunately, Suzie has her book club friends to help her unravel the mystery, all while falling in love with the handsome detective investigating the murder.

All Penny has ever wanted to do is dance-and when that chance is taken from her, it pushes her to the brink of despair, from which she might never return. When she wakes up after a traumatic fall, bruised and battered but miraculously alive, Penny must confront the memories that have haunted her for years, using her love of movement to pick up the pieces of her shattered life.

Ronnie's husband is supposed to move out today. But when Jeff pulls into the driveway drunk, with a shotgun in the front seat, she realizes nothing about the day will go as planned.

Join Danny and his friends as they have many misadventures in a southwestern Pennsylvania steel town during the late 1950s and early 60s. The story has many memorable and odd characters. It was a much simpler time; there were no cell phones, computers, or video games. People still gathered around the radio to listen to Superman and Fiber Magee and Molly. If they were lucky enough to have a TV, it was black and white and all kitchen appliances were white.

With the signature wit and humor that has garnered him legions of fans, Gantos instructs young writers on using their "writing radar" to find story ideas in their own lives. Incorporating his own misadventures as a developing writer, Gantos inspires listeners to build confidence and establish good writing habits as they create and revise their stories. More than just a how-to guide, Writing Radar is a celebration of the power of storytelling and an ode to the characters who - many unwittingly - inspired Gantos' own writing career.