A Convergence of Birds is a collection of experimental fiction and poetry inspired by the artwork of Joseph Cornell. Jonathan Safran-Foer, while still an unpublished college-student, solicited his favorite authors to write about Cornell prints which he sent them in the mail along with his request for submissions. He was surprised when many of most famous and well-regarded personages on his list—including Joyce Carol Oates, Rick Moody, Barry Lopez, and others—responded enthusiastically to his proposal. These respondents, he writes, "were believers. But not in me and my maladroit proposal. It wasn't my supplication they were responding to, it was Cornell's--not even Cornell's, but that of his boxes. The boxes called the writers from great distances; they demanded the attention of those who had no attention to spare." Source: Wikipedia (en)