About the Book
Readers will find that the words profiled here have a new trace of meaning, warmth, and a time-worn glow.--John Morse, publisher of Merriam-Webster, Inc.
In One Word: Contemporary Writers on the Words They Love or Loathe, Molly McQuade asks the question all writers love to answer: what one word means the most to you, and why? Writers respond with a wild gallimaufry of their choosing, from ardor to bitchin' to thermostat to wrong to very. There is corn, not the vegetable but the idea, defining cultural generations; solmizate, meaning to sing an object into place; and delicious slang, such as darb and dassn't. Composed as expository or lyric essays, zinging one-liners, extended quips, jeremiads, etymological adventures, or fantastic romps, the writings address not only English words but also a select few from French, German, Japanese, Quechua, Basque, Igbo, and others. The result is like the best of meals: filled with color, personality, and pomp. There is something delightful and significant for every reader who picks up this wonderful book.
Includes contributions by Albert Goldbarth, Forrest Gander, Brenda Hillman, Mimi Schwartz, Daisy Fried, Thylias Moss, Srikanth Reddy, Susan Bernofsky, Michael Martone, Cole Swensen, and more.
About the Author: Molly McQuade: Molly McQuade has worked as an editor of books, journals, and magazines for the Great Books Foundation, Publishers Weekly, Wesleyan University Press, TriQuarterly, Parnassus, Chicago Review, and others. Her prose and poetry have appeared in Yale Review, The New Criterion, The Washington Post, the Village Voice, The Atlantic, American Scholar, Daedalus, Literary Imagination, Threepenny Review, Paris Review, and more. McQuade writes two columns for the American Library Association, and served previously as a columnist for Hungry Mind Review. She has received fellowships or awards from the National Council of Teachers of English, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Among her books are a collection of her essays, Stealing Glimpses (Sarabande Books) and An Unsentimental Education (University of Chicago Press). A frequent panelist and presenter at conferences including the AWP, the MLA, and elsewhere, she has taught literature and writing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Johns Hopkins, the Unterberg Center, and other venues. She blogs for PEN.
