On Writers and Writing

Before his untimely death on the back of his Harley, novelist John Gardner was known as one of the premier teachers of the craft of writing. His books On Moral Fiction and The Art of Fiction are considered classics. On Writers and Writing collects a number of Gardner's essays and reviews, and his comments on such writers as Joyce Carol Oates, John Cheever, John Fowles, William Styron, Philip Roth, and Walker Percy are always insightful and frequently provocative. Gardner also writes about influences on his own writing, and his wide-ranging observations about literary life are enlivened by a rambunctious sense of humor.