Literary Luxuries: American Writing at the End of the Millennium

Former NEA literary czar Bellamy has published two works of fiction, but he is perhaps best known as a short-story anthologist, an editor, a teacher and a longtime impresario in ``the fiction sweepstakes.'' Old wares cleverly repackaged as new, the essays on display here provide snapshots of the literary life from the vantage point of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, various English departments and a handful of sylvan literary retreats where the cocktail hour receives more detailed attention than the actual writing that manages to get done. However self-satisfied some of these reminiscences may seem, Bellamy stands firmly on the side of the angels-the devils being the philistines and bureaucrats who, as his interesting account of his NEA years shows, really do want to banish poets from the republic. In conclusion, a sampling of Bellamy's old book reviews stands as a portrait gallery of some two dozen American writers of the past three decades. (Nov.)