World Within Writers Talk Ambition Angst Aesthetics Bones Books Beautiful Bodies Censorship Cheats Comics Darkness Democracy

The World Within gathers twenty of the freshest, funniest, and most intriguing interviews in the history of Tin House. Featuring informal conversations with a veritable who's-who of contemporary writers, poets, and graphic novelists, these remarkable interviews offer insights into the creative process, questions of craft, and the balance between a writer's work and life. Featuring Sherman Alexie, Tracy Chevalier, Charles D'Ambrosio, Lydia Davis, Anita Desai, Roddy Doyle, Rikki Ducornet, Deborah Eisenberg, Nuruddin Farah, Denis Johnson, Tracy Kidder, Francine Prose, Marilynne Robinson, Barney Rosset, James Salter, Marjane Satrapi, George Saunders, Wallace Shawn, Jim Shepard, Mark Strand, and Gus Van Sant.

"Taken in isolation, each of these interviews (with only a few lackluster exceptions) acts as a stunning glimpse into a remarkable mind. Taken in their totality, the interviews begin to snick against each other until it seems that the authors are sparring in some marvelous palaver, and that you, lucky reader, are a bystander at the greatest literary dinner party ever held." -Nathan Ihara, LA Weekly "It's a collection of interviews with writers that has an impossibly long subtitle and an equally high number of quality interviews." -Jeff Baker, The Oregonian

This superb collection features some of the freshest, funniest, most intriguing interviews in the history of Tin House. A veritable whos who of contemporary writers, poets, and graphic novelists discuss work, life, literary theft, dry spells, what they do besides writing, and much more. With a relaxed approach that offers a far different slant than more formal craft-based interviews, these fascinating pieces provide another facet in the making of the world's finest literature.

The World Within pulls aside the curtain on a variety of literary personalities and careers, presenting frank, funny, and informal discussions with Sherman Alexie, Francine Prose, George Saunders, Mark Strand, and others. Writers discuss craft, literary theft, dry spells, what they do besides writing, and more.

Win McCormack is publisher and editor-in-chief of Tin House magazine. He has been in the magazine and book publishing business since 1976. He published Oregon Magazine from 1976 to 1988, and has also been involved in publishing Oregon Business, Oregon Home, Travel Oregon, Military History Quarterly, and Art and Auction magazines, and was involved in the start-up of Mother Jones. He is editor of the books Profiles of Oregon, Great Moments in Oregon History, and The Rajneesh Chronicles, and won a William Allen White award for his investigative coverage of the Rajneesh cult from 1982-1986. He writes on politics and wrote the article "Deconstructing the Election: Foucault, Derrida and GOP strategy," about the presidential election debacle in Florida in 2000, for the Nation. He holds a BA in Government from Harvard College and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Oregon.Holly MacArthur lives in Portland, OR.Rob Spillman is editor of Tin House magazine and executive editor of Tin House Books. He was previously the monthly book columnist for Details magazine and is a contributor of book reviews and essays to Salon and Bookforum. He has written for the Baltimore Sun, the Boston Review, British GQ, Connoisseur, Details, Nerve, the New York Times Book Review, Premiere, Rolling Stone, Spin, Sports Illustrated, SPY, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Worth, among other magazines, newspapers, and online magazines. He has also worked for Random House, Vanity Fair, and the New Yorker.Michelle Wildgen is the author of the novel You're Not You (St. Martin's/Dunne). She is a senior editor at Tin House magazine, where she edits the Readable Feast and Blithe Spirits departments, and an editor at Tin House Books. Her writing has appeared in Best New American Voices 2004, Best Food Writing 2004, the anthology Death by Pad Thai, the journals StoryQuarterly, TriQuarterly, Prairie Schooner, Small Spiral Notebook, and elsewhere.