Recommended by Mimi Kusch, Narrative managing editor
A deeply generous offering from someone who has spent his life editing, writing, and teaching, Poetics is essentially an MFA between two covers. Covering diction, point of view, characterization, imagery, plot, and theme, it includes numerous excerpts from great works, showing what works and why. The chapter on “Plot,” for example, takes readers almost line by line through a short story, pointing out all the scenes within scenes, even within sentences, and conveying the breathtaking architecture in a master work.
