" . . . since I've never been on time for any cultural trend in my life, I'd rather be at the party now, with great potential just ahead, than in some imagined past where a nation read together, authors walked as gods on earth and publishers went home fat and happy every afternoon." -from the Introduction

The sky is NOT caving in on American letters. Far from it. The immensely talented writers in this collection all came of age professionally in the last decade-and all chose reading and writing over another more lucrative and decidedly flashier pursuits. They became producers and consumers of the written word at the most media-saturated time in history, a time when books face greater cultural competition than ever before. Why? How did they come to writing as a calling? What's the relevance of literature when the very term seems quaint? Bookmark Now answers these questions-and many more you probably never thought to ask. Like: What to do when your rabid fans start writing fiction about you? Why don't you have to choose between John Updike and Grand Theft Auto? And, Can you really get paid for it?

The end result is not only a voyeuristic peek into the creative lives of today's writers, but a timely glimpse into a changing book business. Storytelling, it will become clear-as a means of self-realization, community building, or simply putting one's point across-is NOW more relevant than ever before.

• nonfiction