"Writing is often discussed as two separate acts--though in practice they overlap, intermingle, and impersonate each other. They differ in emphasis, but are by no means sequential....If we do them well, both result in discovery. One is the act of exploration: some combination of premeditated searching and undisciplined, perhaps only partly conscious rambling....The other act of writing we might call presentation. Applying knowledge, skill, and talent, we create a document meant to communicate with, and have an effect on, others."

United Kingdom

In his essay "Why Read The Classics," Italo Calvino offers us fourteen hallmarks of a classic, and Peter Turchi's Maps of the Imagination: Writer as Cartographer, published only two years ago, already qualifies as a classic by Calvino's standards--an achievement indeed in a world where most newly released books rarely stay in print long enough to justify the hours spent writing them. Having read this 236-page book twice, both times carefully attentive despite the demands on my time, I can testify that Maps of the Imagination truly is "A classic...which with each rereading offers as much of a sense of discovery as the first reading."

Peter Turchi, director of the MFA Program for Writers for Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina, begins this book with a confession: that he loves cartography. From the illustrations and discussions included throughout his book, I would say not only does he love it, but he is well versed in the craft of maps--maps of all kinds and from all periods of history. Between his passionate interest in maps and his passion for literature and writing, it is not surprising he would find the metaphor between mapmakers and writers a natural one. Ergo, the subtitle: The Writer As Cartographer.

His approach is unique (and I never use the word "unique" lightly). There is a vast body of literature on writing, writers, and the writing life, and indeed, it is partly to make sense of this vastness that I review books on the craft of writing here at The Art of Style. The danger implicit in our fascination with our craft is that we endlessly seek greater understanding, yet for the most part, we are forced to settle for a slim tangent or spin on what we aready know. When we find a new perspective, we sit up, we take notice, we read carefully, and then we keep the book at hand. Turchi's unique perspective sends us back to the page with new eyes on our own work.

He draws an exquisite metaphor between mapmaking and writing--in some chapters, making the parallels concrete; in others, stepping back from the page, so we explore the ideas and find the parallel that makes the most sense to us. Indeed, metaphors are meant to function as guides, as a transparency that lies over and enriches the underlying topic.

Turchi capitalizes upon our everyday familiarity with maps, such as world maps, physical maps, political maps, comparative maps, street maps, subway maps. The purpose of any particular map, such as one that outlines the boundaries of the natural game preserves of Africa, forms the basic direction for the mapmaker, who now has a set of criteria for what to include and what to exclude. But that same physical area in the hands of a different mapmaker might show the boundaries, but emphasize the patterns of poaching. Same map; different purpose; different information included (and therefore, excluded). This same selection and exclusion defines our writing. Turchi says, "We face the same challenge with each new story, novel, poem, play, screenplay, or essay: given subject X, or premise Y, or image Z, there are an infinite number of directions in which the work could go. There is no reason to think one direction is inherently better, more artistically valid, than all the others. Yet we must choose--for each individual piece--just one."

One of the more startling of his discussions on perspectives--both of the writer (mapmaker) and reader--deals with the most familiar world map, which is oriented for the Northern Hemisphere with the American continents in the center of the map. However, one of his illustrations displays a map, but with the orientation on the Southern Hemisphere with Australia in the center of the map. From this perspective, we absorb a different perception of world geography, and in doing so, we can see relationships between land masses, continents, and countries in an entirely different--even shocking--manner. The land masses had, obviously, not changed; just our perspective. That mapmaker had guided readers to a different view of the world. In that same way a writer must question his perspective, explore his world, fill in the blank spaces, and then take readers on a journey through his newly charted territory.

In each of the seven chapters Turchi addresses writing dilemmas, such as omission, sequence, conventions (adherence to and departure from), distortions, shape or matters of form, as well as the balance of intuition and intention. The second chapter, "A Wide Landscape of Snows," is one of the most significant for me, indeed for many writers, who "sweat blood" as we stare at the blank page. However, in cartography, "blank space" is considered natural, since no map can show everything. Then why, in writing, do we find the blank space offensive, destructive? Why do we "sweat blood" to fill it or worse, avoid it altogether? Turchi's discussion on the blank areas on maps leads us to a new way to see the blank page as the product of deliberate omission--this material is not important for my message--or as the product of an unexplored area that beckons to us. What explorer isn't intrigued by the part of the map that has not yet been written on? When we use Turchi's map metaphor to view the "blank page" as beckoning and unexplored territory, we regain a sense of exploration and anticipation as we open a new document on our computer or turn to a new page in our notebook.

As Turchi says:

"Each of us stands at one unique spot in the universe, at one moment in the expanse of time, holding a blank sheet of paper.

That is where [you] begin."