Stephen Koch

“Make [your] characters want something right away—even if it’s only a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time.” —Kurt Vonnegut “‘The cat sat on the mat’ is not the beginning of a story, but ‘the cat sat on the dog’s mat’ is.” —John Le Carré Nothing is more inspiring for a beginning writer than listening to masters of the craft talk about the writing life. But if you can’t get Vladimir Nabokov, Virginia Woolf, and Gabriel García Márquez together at the Algonquin, The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop gives you the next best thing. Stephen Koch, former chair of Columbia University’s graduate creative writing program, presents a unique guide to the craft of fiction. Along with his own lucid observations and commonsense techniques, he weaves together wisdom, advice, and inspiring commentary from some of our greatest writers. Taking you from the moment of inspiration (keep a notebook with you at all times), to writing a first draft (do it quickly! you can always revise later), to figuring out a plot (plot always serves the story, not vice versa), Koch is a benevolent mentor, glad to dispense sound advice when you need it most. The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop belongs on every writer’s shelf, to be picked up and pored over for those moments when the muse needs a little help finding her way.

A Guide to the Craft of Fiction

The Modern Library Writer's Workshop

Provides helpful observations and techniques for would-be fiction writers on such topics as cultivating one's creative imagination, the mechanics of plot and character development, and narrative thinking.

A Novel

The Bachelors' Bride

From Stephen Koch, former chair of Columbia University’s graduate creative writing program, comes essential and practical advice drawn from The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop. With nearly thirty years of teaching experience, Stephen Koch has earned a reputation as an astute and benevolent mentor; and with Advice to the Writer, his lucid observations and commonsense techniques have never been more accessible. Here Koch dispenses sound guidance for those moments when the muse needs a little help finding her way: in “Shaping the Story,” he untangles plot; in “Working and Reworking,” he explains the most teachable (yet least often taught) of all writerly skills: revision; and in “The Story of the Self,” he delves into autobiography. Featuring handpicked commentary from some of our greatest authors, Advice to the Writer is a unique introduction to this maddening and intoxicating pursuit. Praise for Stephen Koch’s The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop “An extraordinarily comprehensive and practical work by a master craftsman and a master analyst of the craft.”—Madison Smartt Bell, author of All Souls’ Rising and Anything Goes “Stephen Koch was my teacher long ago. Now he is everyone’s teacher, indelibly. This is a book not just for the beginning writer but for every writer.”—Martha McPhee, author of the National Book Award nominee Gorgeous Lies “The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop is a treasure trove of wisdom, both immensely practical and philosophical, entertaining and thought-provoking. Koch takes us inside the writing process, and it is impossible not to emerge transformed.”—Joanna Hershon, author of Swimming

The Writer's Guide to Plot, Revision, and Autobiography: A Digital Pamphlet: Excerpted from The Modern Library's Writer's Workshop

Advice to the Writer

Night Watch

Stalin, Willi Munzenberg and the Seduction of the Intellectuals

Double Lives

Hemingway, Dos Passos, and the Murder of Jose Robles

The Breaking Point

The Boy Assassin and the Holocaust

Hitler's Pawn

"In a work of fact that reads like fiction, with a novelist's relish for incident and character, [Koch] brings his troubled, troubling protagonist to life." --Ian Brunskill, The Wall Street Journal After learning about Nazi persecution of his family, Herschel Grynszpan (pronouncedGreenspan) bought a small handgun and on November 7, 1938, went to the Germanembassy and shot the first German diplomat he saw. When the man died two days later,Hitler and Goebbels made the shooting their pretext for the state-sponsored wave of antiSemitic terror known as Kristallnacht, still seen by many as an initiating event of the Holocaust. Overnight, Grynszpan, a bright but naive teenager, was front-page news and a pawn ina global power struggle.

Peter Hujar

Matthew Marks Gallery

Peter Hujar Photographs 1956-1958

How Hitler used the murder of a Nazi diplomat to blame the Jews for WW2, based on new archive sources.

Hitler's Scapegoat

The classic study of a man who redrew the boundaries of art Andy Warhol’s work and personality changed American visual culture forever, making him an international superstar. His rise to global fame, his entanglement with the seedy New York sexual underground, and the shocking assassination attempt that almost ended his life are chronicled in Stephen Koch’s indispensible classic Stargazer. In this must-read volume, Stephen Koch provides unprecedented detail on Warhol’s life and work, giving particular attention to a medium that found Andy at his wildest: film. In one who made paradox into an art form, Koch finds that there was inspiration and brilliance on both sides of the public image that Warhol so meticulously crafted.

The Life, World and Films of Andy Warhol

Stargazer

New B-format paperback edition. How Hitler used the murder of a Nazi diplomat to blame the Jews for WW2, based on new archive sources.

Stephen Koch

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