TELLING STORIES, TALKING CRAFT is a collection of fifteen conversations with some of the finest contemporary fiction writers. These distinguished authors discuss their lives and their craft in candid, thought-provoking interviews from the pages of SYCAMORE REVIEW, Purdue University's international journal of literature, opinion and the arts. CHARLES BAXTER on the myth of productivity | KATE BERNHEIMER on taking women seriously | LARRY BROWN on happy endings | ROBERT OLEN BUTLER on war and fear | MICHAEL CHABON on his reputation in Finland | LAN SAMANTHA CHANG on fiction since 9/11 | PETER HO DAVIES on kitchen sink drafts | ANDRE DUBUS III on bartending | RICHARD FORD on getting in fistfights | JANE HAMILTON on landscape and Home Depot | NICK HORNBY on The Da Vinci Code | HA JIN on being called a traitor | NAMI MUN on fictional gaps | BENJAMIN PERCY on zombies and cemeteries | STEVE YARBROUGH on rejection and the South | PLUS: MICHAEL MARTONE on the art of the literary interview | full index of craft terms CHRISTOPHER FELICIANO ARNOLD has written for Playboy, Ecotone, Northwest Review, and other magazines. His fiction has received awards from The Atlantic Monthly and The National Society of Arts and Letters, and special mention in the Pushcart Prize anthology. ANTHONY COOK grew up in Cincinnati and now lives in Lafayette, Indiana. He has worked for the Las Vegas Sun and the Cincinnati Post, and now teaches writing at Purdue University.