First published 2022
Caroline Gordon believed good fiction emerges from "the intangible, mysterious stuff of life." In this anthology, Gordon and Allen Tate gather twenty-three short stories that demonstrate how master writers transform life into art. The collection reveals fiction as a craft with specific techniques passed down through generations of practitioners. Each story shows these methods in action, with most accompanied by commentaries that explain how the techniques create their effects. The editors include works by Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Stephen Crane, D.H. Lawrence, Katherine Anne Porter, William Faulkner, Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway, J.F. Powers, and Flannery O'Connor. The anthology concludes with detailed notes on fictional techniques that outline fundamental craft methods and identify common mistakes made by inexperienced writers. Gordon and Tate present fiction writing as learnable skills rather than mysterious inspiration, offering readers both examples of excellence and practical guidance for understanding how stories work.
Genres: fiction, art, literary-criticism, anthologies, 20th-century, biography-memoir, criticism, academic
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: anthology, instructional
Period: 20th-Century
564 pages · Hardcover · Cluny Media