• Acknowledgments * Introduction * Andrea Barrett: The Hidden Map of the Story * Aimee Bender: Somewhere along the Line, I ate Fairy tales * Amy Bloom: Writin and Therapy Have Nothing in Common * Elizabeth Cox: Putting the Pain in Straight * Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni: Writers Are Great Eavesdroppers * Maria Flook: I'll See It When I Believe It * Lynn Freed: Colonizing the Territory of the Fiction * Gish Jen; Writing off into the Darkness * Nora Okja Keller: Trying to Inhabit a Soul * Jill McCorkle: Always Looking for the Bite * Elizabeth McCracken: You Must Be Prepared to Break Your Own Heart * Sue Miller: The Hot Dramas of the Domestic Scene * Sena Jeter Naslund: To Be Human Is to Be Artustucakky Creatuve * Ann Patchett: Constantly Plagiarizing Myself * Jayne Anne Phillips: Taking Cues from the Work Itself * A. J. Verdelle: Managing the Whole Fictive World * Lois-Ann Yamanaka: The Characters Know the Sound of Their Own Voice * Bibliography