The book is filled with actual letters to his three fiance's, his literary contemporaries (Longfellow, Irving, and Hawthorne), and his bitter enemies. The characters are brought to life by interactive dialogue that may have taken place given what history teaches us. Read about the life of America's most haunting and mysterious author today and see Edgar Allan Poe brought to life like never before! - Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Expert Reviewer

    You should never quit your day job, but your ultimate goal should be to quit your day job. It's an endless, confusing, and often controversial conversation that, despite our bare-it-all culture, still remains taboo. In Scratch, Manjula Martin has gathered interviews and essays from established and rising authors to confront the age-old question: how do creative people make money? As contributors including Jonathan Franzen, Cheryl Strayed, Roxane Gay, Nick Hornby, Susan Orlean, Alexander Chee, Daniel Jose Older, Jennifer Weiner, and Yiyun Li candidly and emotionally discuss money, MFA programs, teaching fellowships, finally getting published, and what success really means to them, Scratch honestly addresses the tensions between writing and money, work and life, literature and commerce. The result is an entertaining and inspiring book that helps readers and writers understand what it's really like to make art in a world that runs on money-and why it matters.

    F. Said, Madeleine Thien, Salley Vickers, John Wood and Markus ZusakThis story, like so many stories, begins with a gift.The gift, like so many gifts, was a book...' So begins the essay by Robert Macfarlane that inspired this collection. In this cornucopia of an anthology, you will find essays by some of the world's most beloved novelists, nonfiction writers, essayists and poets. 'You will see books taking flight in flocks, migrating around the world, landing in people's hearts and changing them for a day or a year or a lifetime. 'You will see books sparking wonder or anger; throwing open windows into other languages, other cultures, other minds; causing people to fall in love or to fight for what is right. 'And more than anything, over and over again, you will see books and words being given, received and read - and in turn prompting further generosity.' Published to coincide with the 20th anniversary of global literacy non-profit, Room to Read, The Gifts of Reading forms inspiring, unforgettable, irresistible proof of the power and necessity of books and reading. Inspired by Robert Macfarlane Curated by Jennie Orchard

    Each was used by a Harvard student on his or her application and is followed with analysis by the staff of the Harvard Crimson, who help give perspective on what works well, what is a necessary evil, and what detracts from an otherwise compelling essay. With pointers on avoiding common essay pitfalls and stepping back to evaluate strengths applicants never realized they had, Fifty Successful Harvard Application Essays is an inspiration for every student trying to find the one thing that sets him or her apart from the crowd.

    M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel and Milan Kundera's The Art of the Novel, How Fiction Works is a scintillating study of the magic of fiction--an analysis of its main elements and a celebration of its lasting power. Here one of the most prominent and stylish critics of our time looks into the machinery of storytelling to ask some fundamental questions: What do we mean when we say we "know" a fictional character? What constitutes a telling detail? When is a metaphor successful? Is Realism realistic? Why do some literary conventions become dated while others stay fresh?James Wood ranges widely, from Homer to Make Way for Ducklings, from the Bible to John le Carré, and his book is both a study of the techniques of fiction-making and an alternative history of the novel. Playful and profound, How Fiction Works will be enlightening to writers, readers, and anyone else interested in what happens on the page.

    She said she had two rules she followed absolutely: to tell the truth, and not to do anything she didn't want to do. Her integrity shines throughout If You Want to Write, her best-selling classic on the process of writing that has already inspired thousands to find their own creative center. Carl Sandburg called this book "The best book ever written about how to write." Yet Ueland reminds us that "Whenever I say 'writing' in this book, I also mean anything that you love and want to do or to make." Ueland's writing and her teaching are made compelling by her feisty spirit of independence and joy.

    This groundbreaking anthology includes 170 authors and illustrators of alphabets and animal fables, fairy tales and fantasy, picture books and nursery verse, among many other genres. Here readers will find beloved works by Charles Perrault, Lewis Carroll, J. M. Barrie, L. M. Montgomery, and Dr. Seuss along with historical classics—The New-England Primer and Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses—and major voices from the multicultural and global contemporary scene. Over 40 longer complete works and over 400 illustrations, including 60 in color, enhance this comprehensive and visually rich anthology.With introductions that offer fresh insights into the cultural contexts of children's literature and childhood itself over four centuries, author headnotes, annotations, bibliographies, and a timeline, The Norton Anthology of Children's Literature illuminates a literary tradition whose power to instruct and delight is both centuries old and startlingly new.

    Kennedy and Dana Gioia, write of their subject with wit and a contagious enthusiasm.  Informative, accessible apparatus presents readable discussions of the literary devices, illustrated by apt works, and supported by interludes with the poets.  This edition features more than 50 new poems, a new masterwork casebook on T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Songs of J. Alfred Prufrock," extensively revised and expanded chapters on writing, and a fresh new design.

    Poems from the 1600s to the present day are beautifully illustrated with images from the unrivaled collection of Japanese paintings and prints in the British Museum. The majority of the poems come from the Tokugawa period (early seventeenth to mid nineteenth centuries) and include works from the best-known Japanese classical authors, female poets and a number of contemporary writers. Nearly all are newly translated by Alan Cummings.From the tender and the melancholy to the witty and the ribald, the poems and images in Haiku Love comment on the most universal of human emotions.

    Brenda Jackson's beloved Westmorelands series continues with books six through ten of this fan favorite family saga! Bundle includes Jared's Counterfeit Fiancée, The Chase Is On, The Durango Affair, Ian's Ultimate Gamble, and Seduction, Westmoreland Style.

    Although Kathleen Norris’s best-selling Dakota: A Spiritual Geography has brought her to the attention of many thousands of readers, she is first and last a poet.  Like Robert Frost, another poet identified with a particular landscape, she can reveal the miraculous in the ordinary, and she writes with clarity, humor, and deep sympathy for her subjects.

    The Tuesday Night Club read by Joan Hickson The Fourth Man read by Christopher Lee The Affair at the Victory Ball read by David Suchet The Case of the Discontented Soldier read by Hugh Fraser

    You will learn how to break the topic down into easy-to-attack projects; how and where to do research; a process that makes writing easy; how to improve material; how to evaluate your publishing options and how to develop an individualized and workable plan. Using the pilot system of organization, the binder concept and the check-off lists, the book becomes easy to write. This plan will accelerate book writing whether you type it or dictate it..

    The classroom standard for readers and aspiring writers of fiction, The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction offers the most comprehensive, engaging selection of classic and contemporary stories in the field.

    But it is also the planning, the thinking, the writing, the journey: all I've been putting into my teaching for the last two decades. This is the book I wanted when I was first given ninth graders and a list of novels to teach. This is a book of vision and hope and joy, but it is also a book of genre units and minilessons and actual conferences with students." -Penny Kittle What makes the single biggest difference to student writers? When the invisible machinery of your writing processes is made visible to them. "Write Beside Them "shows you how to do it. It's the comprehensive book and DVD that English/language arts teachers need to ensure that teens improve their writing. Across genres, Penny Kittle presents a flexible framework for instruction, the theory and experience to back it up, and detailed teaching information to help you implement it right away. Each section of "Write Beside Them "describes a specific element of Kittle's workshop:Daily writing practice: writer's notebooks and quick writes Instructional frameworks: minilessons, organization, conferring, and sharing drafts Genre work: narrative, persuasion, and writing in multiple genres Skills work: grammar, punctuation, and style Assessment: evaluation, feedback, portfolios, and grading. All along the way, Kittle demonstrates minilessons that respond to students' immediate needs, and her Student Focus sections profile and spotlight how individual writers grew and changed over the course of her workshop. In addition, "Write Beside Them" provides a study guide, reproducibles, writing samples from Penny and her students, suggestions for nurturing your own writing life, and a helpful FAQ. Best of all, the accompanying DVD takes you right inside Penny's classroom. Its video clips explicitly model how to make the process of writing accessible to all kids. Penny Kittle's active coaching and can-do attitude alone will energize your teaching and inspire you to write with your students. But her strategies, expert advice, and compelling in-class video footage will help you turn inspiration into great teaching. Read "Write Beside Them "and discover that the most important influence for all young writers is their teacher. Write Beside Them debuts as the field's most comprehensive, contemporary, and practical book on high school writing. Kittle not only tells how a skillful writing teacher operates, she shows you on the accompanying DVD, with clips of kids at work in every stage of a writing workshop. And all this glorious teaching happens with real, sometimes struggling kids who remind us of our own classrooms and students. Write Beside Them "is the whole package." -Harvey Daniels Author of "Content-Area Writing" and "Subjects Matter" Click here to view a sample video from the DVD.