This is a very short list -- it could easily be twice as long -- just a few of the books that my students and friends and I have found useful and illuminating. Some of the books on this list move into the territory of theory. A few of these are “career” books, though I include them with some trepidation and the desire to give advice (wait as long as possible before publishing the first time or even before publishing new work, let your writing develop richly and fully outside the confusing bustle of the marketplace), which, like most advice, invites the listener to want to stab us behind the arras. Some of the books on this list are about other art forms. Books about acting, for example, can open up new territory in character creation and motivation. It’s useful for writers to try new art forms, to experiment with collage or improv or even a writing genre that doesn’t feel like the “natural” one. Fiction writers learn an enormous amount from studying the craft of poetry, and vice versa.

(The books are in alphabetical order, in paragraphs as the end result of a dialogue with with the blog program and its various visually creative possibilities...)

—Kim Addonizio and Dorianne Laux, The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry (Norton)—Joan Acocella, Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints (Pantheon)—Dorothy Allison, Skin: Talking about Sex, Class, and Literature (Firebrand Books)—Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (Aunt Lute Books)—Robert Atwan, Ed., The Best American Essays: College Edition (Houghton Mifflin)—Richard Balkin (Nick Bakalar, Contributor) A Writer’s Guide to Book Publishing, Third Edition (Plume)—Lynda Barry, What It Is (Drawn & Quarterly)

—Charles Baxter, The Art of Subtext: Beyond Plot (Graywolf Press)—Charles Baxter, Burning Down the House (Graywolf Press)—Charles Baxter and Peter Turchi, Eds., Bringing the Devil to His Knees: The Craft of Fiction and the Writing Life (The University of Michigan Press)—Robin Behn and Chase Twichell, The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises from Poets Who Teach (HarperPerennial)

 —André Bernard, Rotten Rejections: A Literary Companion (Viking Penguin)—Gerald Brommer, Collage Techniques: A Guide for Artists and Illustrators (Watson-Guptil)—Melissa Bruder et al, A Practical Handbook for the Actor (Vintage)—Janet Burroway, Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft, Sixth Edition (Longman)

—Frederick Busch, Letters to a Fiction Writer (W.W. Norton & Company)—R.V. Cassill, Richard Bausch, The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, Sixth Edition (W.W. Norton & Company). —Julie Checkoway, Ed., Creating Fiction: Instruction and Insights from Teachers of the Associated Writing Programs (Story Press)

—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention (HarperPerennial)—Babette Deutsch, Poetry Handbook: A Dictionary of Terms (HarperPerennial)—Annie Dillard, Living By Fiction ((Harper & Row)—Sherry Ellis, Ed. Now Write!: Fiction Writing Exercises from Today’s Best Writers and Teachers (Tarcher)

 —Naomi Epel, Writers Dreaming: 25 Writers Talk About Their Dreams and the Creative Process (Vintage)—Carolyn Forché and Philip Gerard, Writing Creative Nonfiction: Instruction and Insights from Teachers of the Associated Writing Programs (Story Press)—Alice W. Flaherty, The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer’s Block, and the Creative Brain (Houghton Mifflin)—E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich) 

—Henry Louis Gates, Jr., The Signifying Monkey (Oxford University Press)—Philip Gerard, Creative Nonfiction: Researching and Crafting Stories of Real Life (Waveland Press Inc; Revised edition)—Paula Geyh, Fred. G. Lebron, Andrew Levy, Postmodern American Fiction: A Norton Anthology (W.W. Norton & Company)—Uta Hagen, Respect for Acting (Wiley)—Ron Hansen and Jim Shepard, You’ve Got to Read This: Contemporary American Writers Introduce Stories That Held Them in Awe (HarperCollins)

—Daniel Halpern, The Art of the Story (Viking) —Daniel Halpern, The Art of the Tale (Viking)—Holly Harrison, Collage Sourcebook: Exploring the Art and Technique of Collage (Quarry)—Robert Henri, The Art Spirit (Basic Books)—Tony Hoagland, Real Sofistikashun: Essays on Poetry and Craft (Graywolf)—Michael Huxley and Noel Witts, The Twentieth-Century Performance Reader, 2nd Ed. (Routledge)

 —Lewis Hyde, The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World (Vintage)—Keith Johnstone, Impro: Improvisation and the Theater (Theater Arts)—Brian Kitely, The 3 a.m. Epiphany: Uncommon Exercises that Transform Your Fiction (Writer’s Digest)—Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (Pantheon)—Cay Lang, Taking the Leap: Building a Career as a Visual Artist (Chronicle Books) 

—Vincent Leitch, et al, The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism (W.W. Norton & Company)—Betsy Lerner, The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice to Writers (Riverhead Books)—Carol Lloyd, Creating a Life Worth Living: A practical course in career design for artists, innovators, and others aspiring to a creative life (HarperPerennial)—Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Crossing Press)

—David Madden, Revising Fiction: A Handbook for Writers (Penguin Group)—Harry Matthews & Alastair Brotchie, eds, Oulipo Compendium (Atlas Press)—Ralph Mayer, The Artist’s Handbook of Materials and Techniques, Fifth Edition (Viking)—J.D. McClatchy, The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry (Vintage)—Minot, Stephen, Literary Nonfiction: The Fourth Genre (Prentice Hall)—Frances Mayes, The Discovery of Poetry (Harcourt)

 —Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (Vintage)—Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (Knopf)—Susan Page, The Shortest Distance Between You and a Published Book (Broadway)—Lynne Perrella, Alphabetica: An A-Z Creativity Guide for Collage and Book Artists (Quarry) 

—Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris, Poems for the Millenium: The University of California Book of Modern & Postmodern Poetry, Vols 1 & 2 (University of California Press)—B. Minh Nguyen and Porter Shreve, The Contemporary American Short Story (Longman)—Gregory Orr & Ellen Bryant Voigt, Poets Teaching Poets: Self and the World (The University of Michigan  Press)—Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet (W.W. Norton & Company)—Robert L. Root, Jr. & Michael Steinberg, The Fourth Genre: Contemporary Writers of/on Creative Nonfiction (Longman/Pearson)

 —Robert Shapard and James Thomas, Sudden Fiction: American Short-Short Stories (Peregrine Smith)—Robert Shapard and James Thomas, Sudden Fiction International (W.W. Norton & Company)—Joan Silber, The Art of Time in Fiction: As Long as It Takes (Graywolf) —Debra Spark, Curious Attractions (The University of Michigan  Press)—Jerome Stern, Making Shapely Fiction (W.W. Norton & Company)—Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life (Simon & Schuster) 

—Peter Turchi, Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer (Trinity)—Peter Turchi and Andrea Barrett, The Story Behind the Story: 26 Stories by Contemporary Writers and How They Work (Norton)—Ellen Bryant Voigt, The Art of Syntax: Rhythm of Thought, Rhythm of Song (Graywolf) —Ellen Bryant Voigt, The Flexible Lyric (The University of Georgia Press)—Robert Wallace, Writing Poems (Harper Collins)—Lex Williford & Michael Martone, The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction: Fifty North American Stories Since 1970 (Scribner)