Winning high praise from both the PEN Foundation and Oprah may seem a monumental feat, but it’s all in a day’s work for the author, whose novels—The Book of Ruth, A Map of the World, and the just-published The Short History of a Price—artfully pair elegant writing with an empathy for misfits.
May/June 1998
Features
A Writer's Counsel: When an Advance Is Yours to Keep
When a royalty advance is subject to return.
Real Poets in an Imaginary Garden
The Sunken Garden Poetry Festival proves there is an audience for poetry.
Daily Harvest: At Work With Novelist Jane Hamilton
Jane Hamilton.
Rising From the Ashes: Profile of Maxine Hong Kingston
Returning from her father's funeral rite, the award-winning author of The Warrior Woman discovered her home and the only copy of a manuscript she had been working on for years had burned. Renowned for her reinvention of literary form, she...
The Writer in the Family: Civics Lessons for Kindred Spirits
Passing on wisdom.
Whose Electronic Right Is It, Anyway?
Copyright in cyberspace.
Bringing Writers Into the World
Literary agent Gail Hochman.
The Better Way to Sell Fiction
Pitching fiction through query letters.
A Poet's Valediction: Denise Levertov, 1923-1997
In a final interview the poet talks about her influences, which range from Eliot and Williams to the mountain outside her window.
News and Trends
Can Birthday Letters Spell M-O-V-I-E?
Ted Hughes's "Birthday Letters" is a commercial hit.
Zoetrope Celebrates First Anniversary
Coppola shares vision for Zoetrope at ceremony celebrating magazine's first year.
Unique Nonprofit Relocates
Writers Conferences & Festival moves from Denver to Minneapolis.
Bard Presses Roll Again
Avon revives its literary fiction and nonfiction imprint--Bard.