Erin Murphy

A play on George Orwell's famous novel, Burmese Days, Burmese Haze provides a unique--and personal--perspective on the historical events and foreign ties that shaped Myanmar and its relationship with the United States. Former intelligence analyst Erin Murphy tells the story of a remarkable political transition and subsequent collapse, taking the story beyond the headlines to explain why Myanmar and US policy toward it is where it is today. The book weaves in historical details, analysis, and memories drawn from interviews with senior US officials and tycoons, monks, activists, and antagonists.

US Policy and Myanmar's Opening--And Closing

Burmese Haze

Jen Hirt

A diverse collection of essays and companion interviews that offer insight into the inspiration, drafting, and revision process. With a title that suggests both the genre and the process of composing it, Creating Nonfiction is a collection of essays and interviews that aims to open readers’ and writers’ eyes to the formal possibilities of creative nonfiction. Included are memoirs, personal essays, literary journalism, graphic essays, and lyric essays, and the content is equally diverse, with topics ranging from childbirth to child labor, from dandelions to domestic violence. Whereas most anthologies leave readers to speculate about the evolution of each contribution, Creating Nonfiction provides companion interviews that offer insight into the inspiration, drafting, and revision process that produced the essays. Cheryl Strayed talks about how working as a reporter for her hometown newspaper influenced her later writings. Dinty W. Moore reflects on the delicate balance between observation and judgment when writing about subjects whose values differ from your own. Kristen Radtke explains how she decides between textual and visual images when creating a graphic essay. Although they offer an eclectic mix of voices and styles, what these essays all have in common is that ultimately, as contributor Faith Adiele observes, “truth becomes art.” “The selections in Creating Nonfiction are fresh, diverse, and inspiring.” — Lisa Knopp, author of What the River Carries: Encounters with the Mississippi, Missouri, and Platte “An excellent collection of essays by some of our best contemporary essayists.” — Ned Stuckey-French, coauthor of Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft, Ninth Edition

Twenty Essays and Interviews with the Writers

Creating Nonfiction

Dinty W. Moore

Renée K. Nicholson

“Medicine still contains an oral tradition, passed down in stories: the stories patients tell us, the ones we tell them, and the ones we tell ourselves,” writes contributor Madaline Harrison. Bodies of Truth continues this tradition through a variety of narrative approaches by writers representing all facets of health care. And, since all of us have been or will be touched by illness or disability—our own or that of a loved one—at some point in our lives, any reader of this anthology can relate to the challenges, frustrations, and pain—both physical and emotional—that the contributors have experienced. Bodies of Truth offers perspectives on a wide array of issues, from food allergies, cancer, and neurology to mental health, autoimmune disorders, and therapeutic music. These experiences are recounted by patients, nurses, doctors, parents, children, caregivers, and others who attempt to articulate the intangible human and emotional factors that surround life when it intersects with the medical field.

Personal Narratives on Illness, Disability, and Medicine

Bodies of Truth

Todd F. Davis

Contemporary poets offer behind-the-scenes perspectives on the poetic process. This diverse collection of poems and companion essays by forty nationally and internationally known poets allows readers to experience the creative process through the eyes and voice of each poet. No matter how often we are told that revision is an essential component of poetic composition, it can be difficult to resist the temptation to think of the poem as having sprung spontaneously, Athena-like, from the writers head. By exposing readers to the finished product as well as the poets own account of the poems creation, Making Poems offers a behind-the-scenes perspective on the poetic process that will fascinate both beginning and established writers. The book also affords poetry instructors an opportunity to demonstrate to their students the ways in which poems can originate from seemingly mundane and unlikely sources. A valuable addition to ones personal library for all writers and readers of poetry, this anthology finds its rightful position among the tradition of entertaining and enlightening books in which authors discuss poetic craft or the creative process with a cogent blend of practical wisdom and refreshing clarity.  Edward Byrne This collection is a gift to creative writing classrooms everywhere. Rather than literal explanations of the text, these are fascinating explorations of the creative process, achieving the intimacy of a live reading.  Faith Adiele Poets include Jan Beatty, Robin Becker, Fleda Brown, J. L. Conrad, Jim Daniels, Todd Davis, Chris Dombrowski, Dan Gerber, Jeff Gundy, Kimiko Hahn, William Heyen, H. L. Hix, John Hoppenthaler, Ann Hostetler, Julia Spicher Kasdorf, David Kirby, Gerry LaFemina, Mary Linton, Shara McCallum, Dinty W. Moore, Erin Murphy, Mary Rose OReilley, Lee Peterson, Greg Rappleye, Keith Ratzlaff, Jack Ridl, Steven Sherrill, David Shumate, Aaron Smith, Lucien Stryk, Mary Swander, Sue Ellen Thompson, Natasha Threthewey, Brian Turner, Lee Upton, G. C. Waldrep, Michael Waters, Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, Katharine Whitcomb, and Robert Wrigley.

Forty Poems With Commentary by the Poets

Making Poems

Beginning with the ascent of James I and ending with the 1701 Act of Settlement, Familial Forms: Politics and Genealogy of Seventeenth-Century English Literature is the first study to offer a comprehensive reading of literary engagements with the epistemological and political questions of family surrounding the crises of succession that defined this period. Examining how works by John Milton, Lucy Hutchinson, John Dryden, and Mary Astell used form to participate in key moments in the period's politics of genealogy, this book moves us beyond discussion of the family-state analogy. By investigating the intersection of the lineal and the analogical, the reproductive as well as the paternal, Familial Forms provides a new map of the seventeenth-century politics of family.

Politics and Genealogy in Seventeenth-Century English Literature

Familial Forms

Contemporary poets offer behind-the-scenes perspectives on the poetic process.

Erin Murphy

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