Draft No. 4 by John Mcphee

Draft No. 4 by John Mcphee

The long-awaited guide to writing long-form nonfiction by the legendary author and teacher

Draft No. 4 is a master class on the writer's craft. In a series of playful, expertly wrought essays, John McPhee shares insights he has gathered over his career and has refined while teaching 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 nonfiction pieces, and he presents extracts from his work, subjecting them to wry scrutiny. In one essay, he considers the delicate art of getting sources to tell you what they might not otherwise reveal. In another, he discusses how to use flashback to place a bear encounter in a travel narrative while observing that "readers are not supposed to notice the structure. It is meant to be about as visible as someone's bones." The result is a vivid depiction of the writing process, from reporting to drafting to revising--and revising, and revising.

Draft No. 4 is enriched by multiple diagrams and by personal anecdotes and charming reflections on the life of a writer. McPhee describes his enduring relationships with The New Yorker and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and recalls his early years at Time magazine. Throughout, Draft No. 4 is enlivened by his keen sense of writing as a way of being in the world.

John McPhee was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and went to Princeton and Cambridge Universities for his education. His writing career began at Time magazine and continued at The New Yorker, where he has worked as a staff writer since 1965. His debut book, A Feeling of Where You Are, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1965, and he has subsequently written approximately 30 volumes, including Oranges (1967), Coming into the Country (1977), The Control of Nature (1989), The Founding Fish (2002), Unusual Carriers (2007), and Silk Parachute (2011). The Curve of Binding Energy (1974) and Encounters with the Archdruid (1972) were both nominated for National Book Awards in the category of science. In 1977, the Academy of Arts and Letters presented McPhee with the Prize in Literature.

For Annals of the Former World, he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1999. He is a resident of Princeton, New Jersey.