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We Wanted to be Writers by John Irving, T.C. Boyle, Sandra Cisneros, Jane Smiley, and Jayne Anne Phillips. “In the intercepts that comprise We Wanted to be Writers, Glenn Schaeffer and I and our fellow Iowa workshoppers discuss what we learned in the Workshop back in the mid-70s—and what we didn’t learn—and what we learned in the decades since about life, art, the creative process, teaching, the lit biz, and more. Our goal is to provide advice and counsel and analysis, how-to, maybe some inspiration, and a cautionary tale or two. Along the way, I hope we also entertain with some good yarns and a little gossip….One goal in assembling this book has been to provide a compendium of reflections we wish that we’d had before we arrived naked in Iowa City—a book in which practitioners call themselves straight up. As unique as writers may be, or as unique we like to think of ourselves, nonetheless patterns of similarity emerge, especially when it comes to the creative process itself. Part of what we learned at Iowa and the years after was how to accommodate and trust that process, and this is a major part of the discussion.”