John Casey

It’s been more than two decades since Spartina won the National Book Award and was acclaimed by critics as being “possibly the best American novel . . . since The Old Man and the Sea” (The New York Times Book Review), but in this extraordinary follow-up novel barely any time has passed in the magical landscape of salt ponds and marshes in John Casey’s fictional Rhode Island estuary.
Elsie Buttrick, prodigal...

"For students and writers alike, a brilliant guide to the craft of writing by the National Book Award-winning author of Spartina. National Book Award winner John Casey is a masterful novelist who is also an inspiring and beloved teacher. In Beyond the First Draft he offers essential and original insights into the art of writing-and rewriting-fiction. Through anecdotes about other writers' methods and habits (as well as his own) and close readings...

A classic tale of a man, a boat, and a storm, Spartina is the lyrical and compassionate story of Dick Pierce, a commercial fisherman along the shores of Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay. A kind, sensitive, family man, he is also prone to irascible outbursts against st the people he must work for, now that he can no longer make his living from the sea. Pierce's one great passion, a fifty-foot fishing boat called Spartina, lies unfinished in his backyard....

Breece D'J Pancake cut short a promising career when he took his own life at the age twenty-six. Published posthumously, this is a collection of stories that depict the world of Pancake's native rural West Virginia.