Author Guides
What is Poetry: Conversations with the American Avant-Garde
What is Poetry: Conversations with the American Avant-Garde By Daniel Kane 185 pp. Grades: high school, university $18.95 paperback Over a four-year period, Daniel Kane interviewed many of America’s most interesting and daring contemporary poets about their work. What Is Poetry features twelve of the liveliest of these dialogues, accompanied by an in-depth introduction to…
Read MoreTolstoy as Teacher: Leo Tolstoy’s Writings on Education
Tolstoy as Teacher: Leo Tolstoy’s Writings on Education Edited with an Introduction by Bob Blaisdell Translated by Christopher Edgar 265 pp. Grades: all ages $18.95 paperback Before he wrote War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy founded his own school on his estate at Yasnaya Polyana. Brimming with progressive and sometimes radical ideas on schooling, Tolstoy…
Read MoreThe T&W Guide to William Carlos Williams
The T&W Guide to William Carlos Williams Edited by Gary Lenhart 200 pp. Grades: all ages $15.95 paperback This T&W guide brings together 17 innovative essays on using the work of William Carlos Williams to inspire writing by students and adults. The book covers a wide range of Williams’s oeuvre—from such classics as “The Red…
Read MoreThe T&W Guide to Walt Whitman
The T&W Guide to Walt Whitman Edited by Ron Padgett 224 pp. Grades: all ages $16.95 paperback Fifteen poets have created this first and only guide to teaching Walt Whitman from kindergarten to the college level. The book features fresh ways to read Whitman and to write poetry and prose inspired by his model. Also…
Read MoreThe T&W Guide to Frederick Douglass
The T&W Guide to Frederick Douglass Edited by Wesley Brown, 122 pp. Grades: all ages $15.95 paperback This T&W Guide provides ways for students to experience Frederick Douglass’ Narrative as an aesthetic achievement as well as a socio-historical document. This book emphasizes writing as a means for students to learn about Douglass, his times, and his…
Read MoreThe T&W Guide to Classic American Literature
The T&W Guide to Classic American Literature Edited by Christopher Edgar and Gary Lenhart, 293 pp. Grades: all ages $19.95 paperback In “The American Scholar,” Ralph Waldo Emerson called for a literature emerging from the particularities of the new nation, and a host of great 19th- and 20th-century American poets, fiction writers, and playwrights responded…
Read MoreStructure & Surprise: Engaging Poetic Turns
Structure & Surprise: Engaging Poetic Turns By Michael Theune 243 pp. Grades: high school, university $19.95 paperback Structure & Surprise: Engaging Poetic Turns offers a road map for analyzing poetry through examination of poems’ structures, rather than their forms or genres. Michael Theune’s breakthrough concept encourages students, teachers, and writers to use structure as a tool…
Read MoreSing the Sun Up: Creative Writing Ideas from African American Literature
Sing the Sun Up: Creative Writing Ideas from African American Literature Edited by Lorenzo Thomas 200 pp. Grades: all ages $16.95 paperback In Sing the Sun Up, 20 writers present new and exciting ways to motivate students to write imaginatively, inspired by African American poetry, prose, and drama. Teachers of English literature, creative writing, and Black…
Read MoreLuna, Luna: Creative Writing Ideas from Spanish, Latin American, and Latino Literature
Luna, Luna: Creative Writing Ideas from Spanish, Latin American, and Latino Literature Edited by Julio Marzán 248 pp. Grades: all ages $17.95 paperback In these 21 lively essays, teachers and writers tell how they have used Spanish, Latin American, and Latino literature to inspire their students to create their own poems and stories. The literary models…
Read MoreIlluminations: Great Writers on Writing
Illuminations: Great Writers on Writing Edited by Christina Davis & Christopher Edgar 120 pp. Grades: high school, university $18.95 paperback Illuminations is a dazzling behind-the-scenes look at the art of writing, with 55 thought-provoking passages by great writers from around the world and throughout history, including Dante, Sei Shonagon, Franz Kafka, Edgar Allan Poe, Marina…
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