A Conversation with John McPhee: Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process

On October 24 Labyrinth Books will celebrate Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process, John McPhee‘s long-awaited guide to writing long-form non-fiction, by hosting the legendary author and teacher in conversation with two of his accomplished former students, Joel Achenbach and Robert Wright.

Draft No. 4 is a master class on the writer’s craft. In a series of playful, expertly wrought essays, McPhee shares insights he has gathered over his career and refined while teaching in the Ferris Seminars in Journalism at Princeton University, where he has nurtured some of the most esteemed writers of recent decades. McPhee offers definitive guidance in the decisions regarding arrangement, diction, and tone that shape non-fiction pieces, and he presents extracts from his work, subjecting them to wry scrutiny.

McPhee has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1965. He is the celebrated author of nearly 30 books, including The Control of Nature, Uncommon Carriers, Silk Parachute, and The Pine Barrens. He is the recipient of the Award in Literature from the Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Annals of the Former World. Achenbach is a staff writer for The Washington Post and the author of A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea, The Grand Idea, and Captured Aliens, among other books. Wright is a journalist, a scholar, and the author of Why Buddhism Is True, The Evolution of God, Nonzero, and The Moral Animal, among other books.

This event is ticketed. Free tickets, limited to two per person, will be available at Labyrinth Book from September 21.

Co-sponsored by Labyrinth Books and the Humanities Council’s Ferris Seminars in Journalism.