For the latest installment of this ongoing feature, the editors asked a handful of writers--both new and more established--to reflect upon their beginnings. Listed below are the pariticipants and the titles of their first and most recent published works.

Madison Smartt Bell: The Washington Square Ensemble (1983); Master of the Crossroads (2000)

Michael Cunningham: Golden States (1984); The Hours (1998)

Kim Edwards: The Secrets of the Fire King (1997)

Dave Eggers: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000)

Richard Ford: A Piece of My Heart (1976); Women with Men: Three Stories (1997)

Jim Harrison: Plain Song (poems: 1965); Wolf: A False Memoir (novel; 1971); The Beast God Forgot to Invent (2000)

Aleksandar Hemon: The Question of Bruno (2000)

Jonathan Lethem: Gun, with Occasional Music (1994); This Shape We're In (2001)

Susan Minot: Monkeys (1986); Evening (1999)

George Saunders: CivilWarLand in Bad Decline (1996); Pastoralia (2000)

Joanna Scott: Fading, My Parmacheene Belle (1987); Make Believe (2000)