I. Who is the writer?
In the beginning...
The apprentice novels
A day in the life
The writing space
The artist as shape-shifter
The quesion of vision
II. The process of writing
A boot camp for creative writing
Words
In defense of our language
Telling it long and telling it short
Opening sentences: a hundred rays of light
On craft and revision
The challenge of voice
How we sound
Nature gives us no metaphors
Scene and dialogue
The importance of plot
Storytelling and the alpha narrative
On the novel and short story
The essay
The risks we take
III. What helps the writer?
On teachers and mentors
The wounds that create our work
The first readers
Writers and editors
On reading
The virtues of journalism
Practical literary advice
IV. The writer as teacher
The literary duet: creative writing and critical theory
The creative-writing teacher as soul catcher
Writing and teaching, or From Mr. Hyde to Dr. Jekyll
V. The writing life and the duties of the writer
The art of book reviewing
In translation
On screenwriting
Editing and small presses
VI. Philosophy and the writer
Writing well is thinking well
The writer and philosophy
Fiction and the liberation of perception
New fiction novelists
Science fiction and the philosophical novel
Sartre and the nothingness of being
The truth-telling power of fiction
Afterword: Notes from a former student / by Marc C. Conner.