Highly respected poets, Hall and Emblem have chosen classical and contemporary selections to make this a delightful writer's companion. A Writer's Reader is a collection of essays, short stories, and poems organized alphabetically, so instructor's can arrange readings to best suit their needs. Several readings by the same author are provided for a closer look at a writer's style. A rhetorical and thematic index are included to support various teaching approaches. Unobtrusive pedagogy includes author headnotes and 5-10 "Considerations" questions with each selection.

Table of Contents:
 1. Shirley Abbot, The Importance of Dissimulation.  2. Diane Ackerman, The Importance of Touch.  3. Julia Alvarez, A White Woman of Color.  4. Maya Angelou, Mr. Red Leg.  5. Margaret Atwood, Pornography.  6. Margaret Atwood, Alien Territory.  7. Wendell Berry, A Native Hill.  8. Ambrose Bierce, Some Devil's Definitions.  9. Sven Bikerts, Objection Noted: Word Processing. 10. Louise Bogan, Miss Cooper and Me. 11. Daniel J. Boorstin, The Psuedo-Event. 12. Micheal Booth. 13. Gwendolyn Brooks, The Bean Eaters. 14. Raymond Carver, A Small Good Thing. 15. Raymond Carver, My Father's Life. 16. Raymond Carver, Errand. 17. Michelle Cliff, If I Could Write This in Fire, I Would Write This in Fire. 18. Judith Ortiz Cofer, Primary Lessons. 19. Billy Collins, Marginalia. 20. Frank Conroy, A Yo-Yo Going Down. 21. Bernard Cooper, Burl's. 22. John Daniel, Looking After. 23. Joan Didion, Last Words. 24. Frederick Douglas, Plantation Life. 25. Gerald Early, Life with Daughters. 26. Gretel Ehrlich, About Men. 27. Ralph Ellison, On Becoming A Writer. 28. Nora Ephron, A Few Words about Breasts: Shaping Up Absurd. 29. Louise Erdrich, The Leap. 30. Robert Finch, Very Like a Whale. 31. Janet Frame, Jewels. 32. Joan Frank, Petty Theft. 33. Robert Frost, The Gift Outright. 34. Martin Gansberg, 38 Who Saw Murder, Didn't Call the Police. 35. Rumer Godden, An Imaginary Correspondence. 36. Steven Jay Gould, The Case of the Creeping Fox Terrier Clone. 37. Harvey Green, The Radio Age 1915-1945. 38. John Haines, Death Is a Meadowlark. 39. Donald Hall, Keeping Things. 40. Patricia Hample, Holding Old Negatives Up to the Light. 41. Jean Hegland, The Fourth Month. 42. Lillian Hellman, Runaway. 43. Ernest Hemingway, Hills Like White Elephants. 44. Edward Hoagland, The Urge for an End. 45. Andrew Holleran, Bedside Manners. 46. James D. Houston, Sand, Tattoo, and the Golden Gate. 47. Langston Hughes, Salvation. 48. Cynthia Huntington, The Spiral. 49. Zora Neal Hurston, How It Feels to Be Colored Me. 50. Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Jefferson and the Congress. 51. Jane Kenyon, Gettysburg: July 1, 1863. 52. Jane Kenyon, Seasons of Change and Loss. 53. Jane Kenyon, Two Poems by Anna Akhmatova. 54. Jamaica Kincaid, On Seeing England for the First Time. 55. Barbara Kingslover, The Forest in the Seeds. 56. Maxine Hong Kingston, Silence. 57. Yusef Komunyakkaa, Facing It . 58. Phillip Lopate, On Shaving a Beard. 59. Bary Lopez, The Stone Horse. 60. Thomas Lynch, Burying. 61. John Mc Phee, The Search for Marvin Gardens. 62. Nancy Mairs, The Unmaking of a Scientist. 63. Peter Marin, Helping and Hating the Homeless. 64. Kenneth Maue, Quiet Is Freedom. 65. N. Scott Monaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain. 66. Kyoko Mori, Coming Home to Books. 67. Toni Morrison, Nobel Lecture. 68. Flannery O'connor, From Flannery O'connor's Letters. 69. Flannery O'connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find. 70. Flannery O'connor, The Total Effect and the Eighth Grade. 71. Flannery O'connor, Christmas. 72. Tillie Olson, I Stand Here Ironing. 73. George Orwell, A Hanging. 74. George Orwell, Politics and the English Language. 75. George Orwell, Shooting an Elephant. 76. Camille Paglia, Cats. 77. Walter G. Prausnitz, Christmas Letter. 78. David Quammen, So What? 79. Ishmael Reed, America: The Multinational Society. 80. Charles Simic, On Food and Happiness. 81. Gary Soto, The Grandfather. 82. William Stafford, A Way of Writing. 83. Brent Staples, Just Walk On By. 84. Shelby Steele, I'm Black, You're White, Who's Innocent. 85. Wallace Stegner, The Town Dump. 86. Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal. 87. Mary Tallmountain, Outflight, An Essay. 88. Amy Tan, Mother Tongue . 89. Amy Tan, In the Canon, For All the Wrong Reasons. 90. Amy Tan, Two Kinds. 91. Lewis Thomas, Ceti. 92. Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience. 93. Henry David Thoreau, From the Journals: June 16, 1854; From the Journals: November 30, 1858. 94. James Thurber, Which. 95. Barbara Touchman, History as a Mirror. 96. Mark Twain, Was the World Made for Man? 97. John Updike, The Disposable Rocket. 98. Gore Vidal, Drugs. 99. Alice Walker, The Black Writer and the Southern Experience. 100. Eudora Welty, A Worn Path. 101. Eudora Welty, The Point of a Story. 102. Bailey White, Porsche. 103. E.B. White, Once More on the Lake. 104. Virginia Woolf, If Shakespeare Had a Sister. 105. Richard Wright, The Liberty Card. A Rhetorical Index. A Thematic Index.