"In Xanadu did Kubla Kahn a stately pleasure
dome decree." Coleridge
Sharpshooter: A Novel of the Civil War [U. Tenn. Press, 1996, nominated for
Pulitzer Prize]
On the Big Wind [Holt, 1980]
Pleasure-Dome [Bobbs-Merrill, l979]
The Suicide's Wife [Bobbs-Merrill, 1978, nominated for Pulitzer Prize; made
into a CBS Movie]
Bijou [Crown, 1974, a Book of the Month Club Selection]
Brothers in Confidence [Avon, 1972]
Cassandra Singing [Crown, 1969, N.Y. Times Selection. Wrote screenplay for Warner
Brothers] Reprinted by University of Tennessee Press, 1999.
The Beautiful Greed [Random House, 1961]
Collections of Short Stories:
The New Orleans of Possibilities [LSU Press, 1982]
The Shadow Knows [LSU Press, 1970, a National Council on the Arts Selection]
Short Stories: over 60. Thirteen Short Stories in Twenty-four Anthologies.
Poems: over 50 poems.
Plays: Five plays won state and national contests and have been produced and
published.
Fully Authored Scholarly Works on Six Genres and Two Writers:
Harlequin's Stick, Charlie's Cane [Popular Culture Press, 1975] First book to
compare commedia dell'arte & silent movie comedy]
James M. Cain [Twayne, 1970] First book on Cain.
Cain's Craft [Scarecrow Press, 1985] A more specific study of James M. Cain's
craft as a novelist and of his movie writing]
The Poetic Image in Six Genres [Southern Illinois University Press, 1969] Collection
of my essays.
Wright Morris [Twayne, 1964] First book on Morris.
The Fiction Tutor: The Art of Writing and Reading Fiction [Harcourt Brace, 1990]
Revising Fiction: A Handbook for Writers [Plume-Penguin, 1988] Now in 9th printing.
A Primer of the Novel: For Readers and Writers [Scarecrow, 1979]
Writers' Revisions: An Annotated Bibliography of Articles and Books About Writers?
Revisions and Their Comments on the Creative Process [Scarecrow, 1980], with
Richard Powers.
Edited Works on Literature, Specific Writers, and Civil War History:
Beyond the Battlefield: The Ordinary Life and Extraordinary Times of the Civil
War Soldier [Simon and Schuster, 2000.]
The Legacy of Robert Penn Warren, ed., LSU Press, September 2000.
Classics of Civil War Fiction [University Press of Mississippi, 1991], with
Peggy Bach. To be reprinted, revised, by University of Alabama Press in 2000.
Rediscoveries II [Carroll and Graf, 1988]. With Peggy Bach; essays written on
request by famous novelists on their favorite neglected novel.
Remembering James Agee [LSU Press, 1974; University of Georgia Press, second
edition, 1997]
Contemporary Literary Scene [Salem Press, 1974, v. I; 1979, v. II] With Frank
Magill.
Nathanael West: The Cheaters and the Cheated [Edward/Edwards Press, 1973]
Rediscoveries [Crown, 1971]
American Dreams, American Nightmares [Southern Illinois University Press, 1970]
Tough Guy Writers of the Thirties [Southern Illinois University Press, 1968]
Proletarian Writers of the Thirties [Southern Illinois University Press, 1968]
Note: In all my criticism, I deal with the art of writing, more than with theme,
etc., and with the dynamic relationship between the writer's craft and the psychology
of the act of reading.
A Pocketful of Prose: Vintage [1992]
Work in Progress: London Bridge Is Falling Down, a novel; Myriadmindedness:
A Method for Effecting Radical Change in the Way Human Being Think; Revising
Nonfiction; short stories, poems, and essays.
