Contributors include:

• Annie Dillard, "Notes For Young Writers"
• Diane Ackerman, "Language at Play"
• Stewart O' Nan, "My Mysteries of Pittsburgh"
• Megan Foss, "Skin Deep"
• Elissa Wald, "Notes from the Catwalk"
• Omari & Jack Daniel, "We Fish"
• Malcolm Cash, "The Preacher Says"
• Keely Bowers, "How Butterflies Grew Wings"
• Hilary Masters, "Passing Through Pittsburgh"
• Lester Goran, "The Conjurer's Profession"
• Chuck Kinder, "That Sweet Anarchy We Call Youth"
• Leslie Rubinkowski, "In the Woods"
• Kathleen Veslany, "Lessons In Persuasion"
• Richard Peterson, "As I Was Walking Down Carson Street"
• Jan Beatty, "Ghost Story"
• And a photo essay about photographer Charles "Teenie" Harris

Lessons in Persuasion
Edited by Lee Gutkind

Pittsburgh has always been-despite its industrial reputation-a great city in which to be a writer. Its active, close-knit writing community has seen the rise of several luminaries with Pittsburgh connections, such as Annie Dillard and Stewart O'Nan, and the caliber of Pittsburgh's writing community today is better than ever. Lee Gutkind has assembled a reunion of sorts with writers from across the nation, as well as the up-and-coming stars on the local scene-each of whom has a Pittsburgh connection. Many grew up in the region, others attended college here: all of them have an association with the city. The resulting collection of essays is both gentle and jarring, eclectic and persuasive, covering a range of topics-from a stripper's work ethic to West Virginia's famed Matewan shootout, Atlantic City's Boardwalk before Donald Trump, and the uses of poetry to better understand one's own life. Although Pittsburgh is not the subject of most of the essays, these writers are bound by their affinity for the written word and their collective fondness for Pittsburgh.

Available December, 1999
256 pp. / 6 x 9
Trade Paper 0-8229-5715-9 $17.95

Design by Paige L. Liniger