This is a far-reaching collection of essays, poetry, fiction, and writing on Ann Arbor by some of the great thinkers and writers of the last two centuries. ""Writing Ann Arbor"" collects fiction, essay, poetry, memoir, and drama by Max Apple, Charles Baxter, Sven Birkerts, Donald Hall, Robert Hayden, Tom Hayden, Jane Kenyon, Thomas Lynch, Ross Macdonald, Frank O'Hara, Marge Piercy, Dudley Randall, Elwood Reld, Bob Ufer, Wendy Wasserstein, and Nancy Willard, among others. The anthology is eclectic and engaging, with many wonderful surprises: an essay on the Underground Railroad in Ann Arbor; on basketball legend Cazzie Russell; an essay by Arthur Miller; an excerpt from Joyce Carol Oates's ""All the Good People I've Left Behind""; a selection from ""Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table"" by food writer and ""Gourmet"" magazine editor Ruth Reichl; and much more. This is more than a series of portraits on Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan; it is a miniature time capsule, a look into the shifting cultural currents of the last two centuries from some of the greatest thinkers and writers of that time.