A deft analysis and appreciation of fiction—what makes it work and what can make it fail.Here is a book about the craft of writing fiction that is thoroughly useful from the first to the last page—whether the reader is a beginner, a seasoned writer, or a teacher of writing. You will see how a work takes form and shape once you grasp the principles of momentum, tension, and immediacy. "Tension," Stern says, "is the mother of fiction. When tension and immediacy combi...

An eventful train ride. A fatefully timed snowstorm. Late night confessions, half-baked schemes, and bumbling sexual interludes leading nowhere. An endless string of office temp jobs, basement apartments, and crushing heartache. Relive the era at the precipice of a new millennium, when life was supposedly less complicated yet just as crazy.Written between 1985 and 1995, when the author was in his twenties, these stories were once a young man's singleminded obsession-until, abruptly...

Discover a more lighthearted side of the funeral industry in this collection of real-life stories from the authors of Mortuary Confidential.Not knowing what to do, I sat on the church steps and waited. As the gravity of my failure began to well up in me, I began to cry . . . I Had Lost The Hearse!Funerals and the all the things that accompany them are traditionally somber, contemplative events in which the bereaved look to their undertaker...

NATIONAL BESTSELLERPeople make a mess.Marc Maron was a parent-scarred, angst-filled, drug-dabbling, love-starved comedian who dreamed of a simple life: a wife, a home, a sitcom to call his own. But instead he woke up one day to find himself fired from his radio job, surrounded by feral cats, and emotionally and financially annihilated by a divorce from a woman he thought he loved. He tried to heal his broken heart through whatever means he could fi...

"Unflinching, rich and revelatory."—MEGAN ABBOTT“Gorgeous, moody, and evocative . . . half coming-of-age story and half exhaustively researched true crime.” —VANITY FAIR“Bracingly honest and extremely discomfiting, this book is like a riveting episode of Law & Order: SVU set at a Manhattan prep school with the U.S. Open as a backdrop.”—MARIE CLAIREA riveting blend of true crime and coming-of-age memoir— The Stranger Beside Me meets Prep—that presents an intimate and...

From the author of Buffalo Lockjaw comes a mordantly humorous collection of taut, off-the-wall, and heartbreaking short stories. A young girl aspiring to be a ventriloquist using a burnt log as a dummy; Franz Kafka and Sartre cruising a seedy bar, trying to pick up chicks; a lighthearted retired couple stages and executes their own funeral; a son lovingly prepares and brings corn chowder to his parents, whom he keeps in a cage in his backyard. This collection—peppered with moments...

From an award-winning playwright “who splits the difference between David Rakoff and Larry David” (New York magazine)—a “compulsively readable debut” (Time Out New York) of big-hearted, laugh-until-you-can’t-breathe essays, stories, and riffs on finding love and intimacy in New York City.Since moving to New York a decade ago, award-winning writer and performer Isaac Oliver has pined for countless strangers on the subway, slept with half the people...

A "fascinating" ( MetroSource) collection of uncensored, confessional, and at times outrageously funny essays about coming of age, coming out, and the wildest experiences that define us.Collecting the most celebrated stories from the hit podcast RISK!, along with all-new true tales about explosive secrets and off-the-wall adventures, this book paints a spellbinding portrait of the transformational moments we experience in life but rarely talk about...

Rachel Cusk meets Nora Ephron in this intimate and evolving portrait about the end of a marriage and how life can fall apart and be rebuilt in wonderful and surprising waysOne minute Elizabeth Crane and her husband of fifteen years are fixing up their old house in Upstate New York, finally setting down roots after stints in Chicago, Texas, and Brooklyn, when his unexpected admission—I’m not happy—changes everything. Suddenly she finds herself separated and...

**Written with unexpected humor and great warmth, The Widower's Notebook is a portrait of a marriage, an account of the complexities of finding oneself single again after losing your spouse, and a story of the enduring power of familial love."This is deeply moving ... beautifully written and modulated, with a dollop of droll, black humor. It is such an achievement, like running uphill against a strong wind."--Joyce Carol Oates**On a summer day in New York Jonathan ...

What do shipwrecks, college slums, bisexuals, and Blink 182 have in common? Gaby Dunn. Gaby is a writer, journalist, and comedian in New York City whose work has appeared everywhere from ROOKIE to New York Times Magazine. “Maybe In Another Universe: The Best of Gaby Dunn, Vol. 1” is a collection of her most humorous, poignant, and touching essays to appear on Thought Catalog.

Everyone says they would like to retire early, but Rodney Rothman actually did it—forty years early. Burnt out, he decides at the age of twenty-eight to get an early start on his golden years. He travels to Boca Raton, Florida, where he moves in with an elderly piano teacher at Century Village, a retirement community that is home to thousands of senior citizens.Early Bird is an irreverent, hilarious, and ultimately warmhearted account of Rodney's journey d...