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.