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New American Essays
Selected by
Conger Beasley Jr. & Robert Stewart
Price
$12.00 paper, 304 pages
ISBN 1-886157-55-3
"Sharp writing is the hallmark of this 20-essay
collection that will shake readers from the mundane. Beasley and Stewart,
both editors at New Letters, an international quarterly journal, here offer
their best selections from the past two decades to promote the contemporary
essay as a literary form. This fact-based prose highlights the drama of the
human experience by allowing the audience to enter each author's encounter."
— Library Journal
"The existence of this
collection, itself, illustrates how seriously we take our obligation to our
readers. While these pieces found readerships at the time of their original
publication, I recently began to feel terrified that our current readers
have missed them. I couldn't stand it. This writing is too vital, too
powerful, downright important, to slip gently into the archival history of
American letters."
—
Robert Stewart, from the
Introduction
Twenty essays originally
published in New Letters, the international magazine of writing and
art—selected from the past two decades of that journal—now in book form.
Writers included are Elmaz Abinder, Conger Beasley Jr., Janet Burroway,
Judith Ortiz Cofer, Brian Doyle, Gerald Early, William H. Gass, Laurence
Gonzales, Linda Hogan, Donn Irving, Thomas E. Kennedy, Debra Marquart,
Hilary Masters, James McKinley, Alyce Miller, Kathrin Perutz, Judy Ray,
Charles Simic, Lauren Slater, Gail Waldstein.
Many
of the essays here are personal explorations of family and culture; yet, the
most important quality of this collection is the quality of the writing
itself, as each aspires toward a literary, narrative depth that can only
result from imaginative use of language and form.
Conger Beasley Jr.'s most recent book is
Patagonia: Wild Land at the End of the Earth. Robert Stewart's most recent
book is Outside Language: Essays.
Recorded interviews with these authors are available from New Letters on the Air.
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