★★★★★: Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft (4th Edition) (Penguin Academics Series) (Paperback) by Janet Burroway, reviewed by C. J. Singh – See all my reviews
As expected, the fourth edition adds new short stories, nonfictions, poems, dramas and drops some of the ones in the third edition, keeping the overall page count of the book about the same. The new stories added are by Tobias Wolff, Jamaica Kincaid, Ursula Le Guin and others; new examples of creative nonfiction are from Michael Chabon, David Sedaris, and others. Also new are nearly half of the poems and dramas.
Some of the “new” additions are from the most widely anthologized, for example, Tobias Wolff’s “Bullet in the Brain,” Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” and Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl.” That’s good for beginners: if you haven’t read them before, they are great additions; good for instructors: if you have read them before, they cut down your preparation time.
The expository sections of Poetry and Drama are expanded. Particularly helpful for self-teaching will be the first and final drafts of Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “One Art” and Patty Seyburn’s “Anatomy of Disorder.”
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