Persistently Unusual Subjects

With The Writer's Notebook: Craft Essays From Tin House edited by Lee Montgomery, literary magazine Tin House culls (with a few original exceptions) its Summer Writers Workshop and offers up 17 essays by the likes of Dorothy Allison, Jim Shepard, Aimee Bender, Rick Bass, Margot Livesey, Antonya Nelson, Chris Offutt, D.A. Powell, Peter Rock, and Jim Krusoe.

Editor Lee Montgomery opines that these writerly pieces behave like "intimate conversations," which is one of the reasons it makes some kind of sense to offer these to the general reader. (Though if a writer is buried--sometimes deeply--in the heart of every reader, that may be why James Wood's How Fiction Works has broader appeal.) As importantly, almost any subject is good reading in the hands of a talented writer. And believe me--though these are not household names (which writers are?)--these are fine writers. Take Williams College mentor Jim Shepard on "Generating Fiction From History and/or Fact":

And in case this cornucopia of writers writing on writing is not enough; there is a bonus CD included.