John Gardner

The author of this meditation on the art of novel writing, Gardner consistently describes his own experiences of writing and teaching about writing, inevitably backing off to say that an element may not be typical of all writers, but useful nonetheless. Gardner's student, author Raymond Carver in his foreword describes his teacher's generous spirit, an element in writing that Gardner himself emphasizes.

Gardner's writings include The Forms of Fiction (with Lennis Dunlap), Grendel, Mickelsson's Ghosts, Nickel Mountain, The Resurrection, The Sunlight Dialogues, and The Wreckage of Agathon. He discusses several of them in the book to illustrate the process of writing. Gardner says that he has been writing happily since the age of eight, continues writing poems, stories, novels, and plays in high school, takes courses in college and graduate school, and works toward a Ph.D., but is dissatisfied that nothing he writes seems worth the...