December 1996 
In Defense of Writing What You Don't Know
Sharon Oard Warner
Maybe you've had a similar experience. When I was in my early twenties and a junior or senior in college, people often inquired about my plans: "So, what do you want to do with your life?" Confronted with this query, my impulse was to lie or to laugh. You see, I hadn't approached higher education with any practical aims in mind.
Read more...
An Interview with John Edgar Wideman
Renée Olander
John Edgar Wideman is author of thirteen books, eleven fiction and two nonfiction. Among his honors are a MacArthur Award and two PEN/Faulkner Awards for the novels Sent For You Yesterday‑and Philadelphia Fire. In 1995, his prose work Fatheralong was a finalist for the National Book Award. He recently edited The Best American Short Stories 1996. Mr. Wideman lives and teaches in Amherst, Massachusetts. This interview took place while he was at work on The Cattle Killing, just published by Houghton Mifflin.
Read more...
Arguing Poetry: How Contemporary Poets Write About Poetry
Sharon Dolin
I want to believe that poets, being primarily lovers of poetry, are closer to being able to formulate accurate descriptions of their craft-or at least theories based on love. Whoever holds the day in theory may not hold the sway in poetry. Yet that person will exert a force on poetry's direction.
Read more...
Curious Attractions: Magical Realism's Fate in the States
Debra Spark
Like a lot of people, I'd like to write what I like to read. And my early passions were for the so-called "magical realists." The deliriously imaginative Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez, Gogol, and Julio Cortázar. Later Steve Stern, Stuart Dybek, and Louise Erdrich. But when I set myself to the task of writing this kind of fiction-by which I mean fiction that struck me as fantastic in all senses of the word-I found myself hobbled by an inability to get my imagination to work in this country.
Read more...
