This book includes over 50 essays, and the astounding variety and excellence of the group make for a remarkably complete statement on the difficulty, self-loathing, humor, courage, and inspiration involved with the creative process.

Such writers as John Fowles, John Updike, Margaret Atwood, James A. Michener, Susan Sontag, Darryl Pinckney, Alice Hoffman, Roy Blount Jr., Joyce Carol Oates and Arthur Miller cheerfully and skillfully reveal themselves, along with many others, using Borges' playful construct with surprisingly distinctive results.

In addition, the authors have accompanied their pieces with self-portraits, which range from cartoonist Ed Koren's zany figures to Helen Vendler's carefully traced hand, and include a variety of possibilities in between. It is rare that readers are given such privileged information (however tongue-in-cheek) about the identities of their favorite authors - still rarer to meet their personas in the same place.