Ideal for individual or classroom use, Architectures of Possibility theorizes and questions the often unconscious assumptions behind such traditional writing gestures as temporality, scene, and characterization; offers various suggestions for generating writing that resists, rethinks, and/or expands the very notion of narrativity; visits a number of important concerns/trends/obsessions in current writing (both on the page and off); discusses marketplace (ir)realities; hones critical reading and manuscript editing capabilities; and strengthens problem-solving muscles from brainstorming to literary activism. Exercises and supplemental reading lists challenge authors to push their work into self-aware and surprising territory.

This edition features something entirely lacking in most books about creative writing: more than 40 interviews with contemporary innovative authors, editors, and publishers—including Robert Coover, Lydia Davis, Brian Evenson, Shelley Jackson, Ben Marcus, Carole Maso, Scott McCloud, Steve Tomasula, Deb Olin Unferth, Joe Wenderoth, D. Harlan Wilson and Lidia Yuknavitch—all working in diverse media, providing significant insights into the multifaceted worlds of experimental writers' writing.

LANCE OLSEN is the author of more than 20 books of and about innovative writing. He serves as chair of Fiction Collection 2’s Board of Directors and teaches experimental narrative theory and practice at the University of Utah.