Book excerpt: How can students with widely varied levels of literary experience learn to write poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and drama -- over the course of only one semester? In Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief, David Starkey offers some solutions to the challenges of teaching the introductory creative writing course: (1) concise, accessible instruction in the basics of writing poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and drama; (2) short models of literature to analyze, admire and emulate; (3) inventive and imaginative assignments that inspire and motivate. In the third edition, in response to reviewer requests, the literature and writing prompts have been significantly refreshed and expanded, while new treatment of getting published and the growing trend of hybrid creative writing have been added.