This work includes insightful interviews with eigth masters of contemporary fiction and poetry featuring previously uncollected interviews with William Goyen, Philip Larkin, Joyce Carol Oates, Karl Shapiro, William Jay Smith, Elizabeth Spencer, William Styron, and Marya Zaturenska. Taken from a passage by Henry James, the title speaks to the ""madness"" that drives our greatest works of creativity.Robert Phillips questions his interviewees about their work methods, daily lives, influences, sources of inspiration, relationship to other literary figures, response to critics, choice of genre, and reasons for writing.