The telephone / Anwar F. Accawi -- Shadow cities / André Aciman -- How I learned to speak Italian / Helen Barolini -- Graven images / Saul Bellow -- The merely very good / Jeremy Bernstein -- States of reading / Sven Birkerts -- What is realism? / J.M. Coetzee -- Altar boy / Brian Doyle -- Witness / Andre Dubus -- Will you still feed me? / Joseph Epstein -- Someplace in Queens / Ian Frazier -- The test of time / William H. Gass -- Two baths / Elizabeth Graver -- A peaceable kingdom / Edward Hoagland -- In history / Jamaica Kincaid -- Nearing ninety / William Maxwell -- Silk parachute / John McPhee -- Building the house / Mary Oliver -- Orion the hunter / Tim Robinson -- Water babies / Oliver Sacks -- The page turner / Lynne Sharon Schwartz -- Soldier's heart / Louis Simpson -- A visit to Camelot / Diana Trilling -- Lost art / John Updike -- Real life / James Wood.