Praise for What About the Baby? "Fans of McDermott's fiction should flock to this sprightly collection, which demonstrates that the author expects "a lot" from the craft . Set aside those bulky how-to handbooks for this healthy balm of common-sense wisdom, inspiration, and encouragement." -- Kirkus Reviews "With style and wit, novelist McDermott ( The Ninth Hour ) offers a master class on writing fiction . Her love of fiction and its craft is apparent, and her advice is at once encouraging and direct: "I expect a lot of fiction--of mine and yours and everybody else's." Within these pages, there is room at the table for all." -- Publishers Weekly "[T]his collection offers a tender but still often pragmatic set of reflections on writing. Most of all, it is a welcoming and warmhearted exploration of what it means to write (and re-write) when one finds one can do nothing else." -- Shelf Awareness Praise for Alice McDermott "McDermott is a poet of corporeal description .

it's the way she marries the spirit to the physical world that makes her work transcendent." --Sarah Begley, Time "McDermott manages to write lyrically in plain language, she is able to find the drama in uninflected experience." --Charles McNulty, The Los Angeles Times "That's the spectacular power of McDermott's writing: Without ever putting on literary airs, she reveals to us what's distinct about characters who don't have the ego or eloquence to make a case for themselves as being anything special." -- Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air, NPR "Vivid and arresting . Marvelously evocative." --Mary Gordon, The New York Times Book Review cative." --Mary Gordon, The New York Times Book Review cative." --Mary Gordon, The New York Times Book Review cative.

" --Mary Gordon, The New York Times Book Review.