"Fascinating snapshots of remarkable encounters which, when brought together, chart a delightfully unusual path to literary success."―Booklist "Reading this memoir is like being at one of those memorable dinner parties, attended by the best and brightest, sparkling with wit and excellent conversations. You don’t want it to be over, the conversations to end! But with books, you need not worry. You can go back to the party, savor it, reread it again, and again."―Julia Alvarez, author of In the Time of the Butterflies and Afterlife “Gioia has been uncommonly lucky in meeting many major poets, among them Elizabeth Bishop. His portrait of her in these pages is shrewd and subtle. The famously elusive poet quivers into life here.”―Jay Parini, author of Borges and Me: An Encounter In Studying with Miss Bishop, Dana Gioia discusses six people who helped him become a writer and better understand what it meant to dedicate one’s life to writing. Four were famous authors―Elizabeth Bishop, John Cheever, James Dickey, and Robert Fitzgerald. Two were unknown―Gioia’s Merchant Marine uncle and Ronald Perry, a forgotten poet. Each of the six essays provides a vivid portrait; taken together they tell the story of Gioia’s own journey from working-class LA to international literary success.

"Fascinating snapshots of remarkable encounters which, when brought together, chart a delightfully unusual path to literary success."--Booklist "Reading this memoir is like being at one of those memorable dinner parties, attended by the best and brightest, sparkling with wit and excellent conversations. You don't want it to be over, the conversations to end! But with books, you need not worry. You can go back to the party, savor it, reread it again, and again."--Julia Alvarez, author of In the Time of the Butterflies and Afterlife "Gioia has been uncommonly lucky in meeting many major poets, among them Elizabeth Bishop. His portrait of her in these pages is shrewd and subtle. The famously elusive poet quivers into life here."--Jay Parini, author of Borges and Me: An Encounter In Studying with Miss Bishop, Dana Gioia discusses six people who helped him become a writer and better understand what it meant to dedicate one's life to writing. Four were famous authors--Elizabeth Bishop, John Cheever, James Dickey, and Robert Fitzgerald. Two were unknown--Gioia's Merchant Marine uncle and Ronald Perry, a forgotten poet. Each of the six essays provides a vivid portrait; taken together they tell the story of Gioia's own journey from working-class LA to international literary success.

Robert Lowell once remarked in a letter to Elizabeth Bishop that "you ha[ve] always been my favorite poet and favorite friend." The feeling was mutual. Bishop said that conversation with Lowell left her feeling "picked up again to the proper table-land of poetry," and she once begged him, "Please never stop writing me letters—they always manage to make me feel like my higher self (I've been re-reading Emerson) for several days." Neither ever stopped writing letters, from their first meeting in 1947 when both were young, newly launched poets until Lowell's death in 1977. Presented in Words in Air is the complete correspondence between Bishop and Lowell. The substantial, revealing—and often very funny—interchange that they produced stands as a remarkable collective achievement, notable for its sustained conversational brilliance of style, its wealth of literary history, its incisive snapshots and portraits of people and places, and its delicious literary gossip, as well as for the window it opens into the unfolding human and artistic drama of two of America's most beloved and influential poets.

This book brings together almost all of the known interviews Elizabeth Bishop gave over a period of thirty years. Included also are a few selected pieces based on conversations with her. All together they allow her ardent and admiring readers a rewarding, close-up encounter with one of America's great writers. In this collection of conversations Bishop expresses her opinions about various types of poetry, describes her view of the geography of the imagination in the writing process, defends her often criticized feminist views, and discusses her role as teacher and poet. Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) won many prizes for poetry, including a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. She was graduated from Vassar, where she knew Mary McCarthy. She taught at Harvard, New York University, and the University of Washington and was a long-time resident in Brazil.

In this engrossing and gripping fantasy set in the world of the New York Times bestselling Others series, an inn owner and her friends must find a killer—before it’s too late.… Crowbones will gitcha if you don’t watch out! Deep in the territory controlled by the Others—shape-shifters, vampires, and even deadlier paranormal beings—Vicki DeVine has made a new life for herself running The Jumble, a rustic resort. When she decides to host a gathering of friends and guests for Trickster Night, at first everything is going well between the humans and the Others. But then someone arrives dressed as Crowbones, the Crowgard bogeyman. When the impostor is killed along with a shape-shifting Crow, and the deaths are clearly connected, everyone fears that the real Crowbones may have come to The Jumble—and that could mean serious trouble. To “encourage” humans to help them find some answers, the Elders and Elementals close all the roads, locking in suspects and victims alike. Now Vicki, human police chief Grimshaw, vampire lawyer Ilya Sanguinati, and the rest of their friends have to figure out who is manipulating events designed to pit humans against Others—and who may have put Vicki DeVine in the crosshairs of a powerful hunter.

A celebrated foreign policy expert and key impeachment witness reveals how declining opportunity has set America on the grim path of modern Russia--and draws on her personal journey out of poverty, and her unique perspectives as an historian and policy maker, to show how we can return hope to our forgotten places.

A practical introduction perfect for final-year undergraduate and graduate students without a solid background in linear algebra and calculus.