Keep It Real: Everything You Need to Know About Researching and Writing Creative Nonfiction

Keep It Real: Everything You Need to Know About Researching and Writing Creative Nonfiction

Author: Lee Gutkind

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2011-02-07

Total Pages: 170

ISBN-13: 0393077896

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The one guide every creative nonfiction writer needs to turn to when being "creative." Writers of memoir and narrative nonfiction are experiencing difficult days with the discovery that some well-known works in the genre contain exaggerations--or are partially fabricated. But what are the parameters of creative nonfiction? Keep It Real begins by defining creative nonfiction. Then it explores the flexibility of the form--the liberties and the boundaries that allow writers to be as truthful, factual, and artful as possible. A succinct but rich compendium of ideas, terms, and techniques, Keep It Real clarifies the ins and outs of writing creative nonfiction. Starting with acknowledgment of sources, running through fact-checking, metaphor, and navel gazing, and responsibilities to their subjects, this book provides all the information you need to write with verve while remaining true to your story.


My Last Eight Thousand Days

My Last Eight Thousand Days

Author: Lee Gutkind

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2020-10-01

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 0820358061

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As founding editor of Creative Nonfiction and architect of the genre, Lee Gutkind played a crucial role in establishing literary, narrative nonfiction in the marketplace and in the academy. A longstanding advocate of New Journalism, he has reported on a wide range of issues—robots and artificial intelligence, mental illness, organ transplants, veterinarians and animals, baseball, motorcycle enthusiasts—and explored them all with his unique voice and approach. In My Last Eight Thousand Days, Gutkind turns his notepad and tape recorder inward, using his skills as an immersion journalist to perform a deep dive on himself. Here, he offers a memoir of his life as a journalist, editor, husband, father, and Pittsburgh native, not only recounting his many triumphs, but also exposing his missteps and challenges. The overarching concern that frames these brave, often confessional stories, is his obsession and fascination with aging: how aging provoked anxieties and unearthed long-rooted tensions, and how he came to accept, even enjoy, his mental and physical decline. Gutkind documents the realities of aging with the characteristically blunt, melancholic wit and authenticity that drive the quiet force of all his work.


Writing Creative Nonfiction

Writing Creative Nonfiction

Author: Philip Gerard

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2001-05-10

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 1884910505

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Experience the power and the promise of working in today' most exciting literary form: Creative Nonfiction Writing Creative Nonfiction presents more than thirty essays examining every key element of the craft, from researching ideas and structuring the story, to reportage and personal reflection. You'll learn from some of today's top creative nonfiction writers, including: • Terry Tempest Williams - Analyze your motivation for writing, its value, and its strength. • Alan Cheuse - Discover how interesting, compelling essays can be drawn from every corner of your life and the world in which you live. • Phillip Lopate - Build your narrator–yourself–into a fully fleshed-out character, giving your readers a clearer, more compelling idea of who is speaking and why they should listen. • Robin Hemley - Develop a narrative strategy for structuring your story and making it cohesive. • Carolyn Forche - Master the journalistic ethics of creative nonfiction. • Dinty W. Moore - Use satire, exaggeration, juxtaposition, and other forms of humor in creative nonfiction. • Philip Gerard - Understand the narrative stance–why and how an author should, or should not, enter into the story. Through insightful prompts and exercises, these contributors help make the challenge of writing creative nonfiction–whether biography, true-life adventure, memoir, or narrative history–a welcome, rewarding endeavor. You'll also find an exciting, creative nonfiction "reader" comprising the final third of the book, featuring pieces from Barry Lopez, Annie Dillard, Beverly Lowry, Phillip Lopate, and more–selections so extraordinary, they will teach, delight, inspire, and entertain you for years to come!


Creative Nonfiction

Creative Nonfiction

Author: Philip Gerard

Publisher: Waveland Press

Published: 2017-11-10

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1478636890

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Writing creative nonfiction intertwines journalistic truth and literary techniques to tell a story that is clear, accurate, and exploding with meaning. Philip Gerard artfully guides readers through the entire creative nonfiction writing process, going beyond the technical basics to address topics such as ethics, voice, and structural integrity. In response to the genre’s evolution, the latest edition includes examples to illustrate how cultural changes have influenced the way writers conduct research, approach writing, and communicate during the production of their projects. Timely, engaging, and poetic, Creative Nonfiction is the practical manual every novice and seasoned writer will want on their bookshelf.


Folsom's 93

Folsom's 93

Author: April Moore

Publisher: Linden Publishing

Published: 2013-07-01

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 1610352033

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From 1895 to 1937, 93 men were hanged at California's Folsom State Prison, and this book is the first to tell all of their stories, recounting long-forgotten tales of murder and swift justice, or sometimes, swift injustice that hanged an innocent man. Based on a treasury of historical information that has been hidden from the public for nearly 70 years, the full stories of these 93 executed men are presented in this collection including their origins, their crimes, the investigations that brought them to justice, their trials, and their deaths at the gallows. This wealth of previously unpublished historical detail gives a vivid view of the sociology of early 20th-century crime and of the resulting prison life. Readers take a trip back in time to the hard-boiled early 20th-century California that inspired the novels of Dashiell Hammett and countless other crime writers. Illustrated throughout with authentic and haunting prison photographs of each of the condemned men, the crimes and punishments of a vanished era are brought into a sharp and realistic light.


Creative Nonfiction

Creative Nonfiction

Author: Philip Gerard

Publisher: Waveland Press

Published: 2004-02-19

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1478608773

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Nonfiction is in the facts. Creative nonfiction is in the telling. It reads like fiction, but stays loyal to the truth. Philip Gerard walks this fine line with confidence, style and utter zeal, looking at the world with a reporters unflinching eye and offering it up with all the skill of a master storyteller. With the same clarity and passion, Gerard offers instruction and advice to help aspiring and experienced writers create pieces so compelling, so engaging, that readers will never forget them.


True Stories, Well Told

True Stories, Well Told

Author: Lee Gutkind

Publisher: Fourth Chapter Books

Published: 2014-07-06

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 1937163172

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Creative nonfiction is the literary equivalent of jazz: it’s a rich mix of flavors, ideas, voices, and techniques—some newly invented, and others as old as writing itself. This collection of 20 gripping, beautifully-written nonfiction narratives is as diverse as the genre Creative Nonfiction magazine has helped popularize. Contributions by Phillip Lopate, Brenda Miller, Carolyn Forche, Toi Derricotte, Lauren Slater and others draw inspiration from everything from healthcare to history, and from monarch butterflies to motherhood. Their stories shed light on how we live.


You Can't Make This Stuff Up

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Author: Lee Gutkind

Publisher: Hachette+ORM

Published: 2012-07-03

Total Pages: 339

ISBN-13: 0738215864

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From "the godfather behind creative nonfiction" (Vanity Fair) comes this indispensable how-to for nonfiction writers of all levels and genres, "reminiscent of Stephen King's fiction handbook On Writing" (Kirkus). Whether you're writing a rags-to-riches tell-all memoir or literary journalism, telling true stories well is hard work. In You Can't Make This Stuff Up, Lee Gutkind, the go-to expert for all things creative nonfiction, offers his unvarnished wisdom to help you craft the best writing possible. Frank, to-the-point, and always entertaining, Gutkind describes and illustrates every aspect of the genre. Invaluable tools and exercises illuminate key steps, from defining a concept and establishing a writing process to the final product. Offering new ways of understanding the genre, this practical guidebook will help you thoroughly expand and stylize your work.


The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction

The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction

Author: Dinty W. Moore

Publisher: Rose Metal Press

Published: 2012-09-12

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 0984616667

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FEATURING ESSAYS FROM: Barrie Jean Borich • Jenny Boully • Norma Elia Cantú • Rigoberto González • Philip Graham • Carol Guess • Jeff Gundy • Robin Hemley • Barbara Hurd • Judith Kitchen •Eric LeMay • Dinah Lenney • Bret Lott • Patrick Madden• Lee Martin • Maggie McKnight • Brenda Miller •Kyle Minor • Aimee Nezhukumatathil • Anne Panning • Lia Purpura • Peggy Shumaker • Sue William Silverman • Jennifer Sinor • Ira Sukrungruang • Nicole Walker Unmatched in its focus on a concise and popular emerging genre, The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction features 26 eminent writers, editors, and teachers offering expert analysis, focused exercises, and helpful examples of what make the brief essay form such a perfect medium for experimentation, insight, and illumination. With a comprehensive introduction to the genre and book by editor Dinty W. Moore, this guide is perfect for both the classroom and the individual writer’s desk—an essential handbook for anyone interested in the scintillating and succinct flash nonfiction form. How many words does it take to tell a compelling true story? The answer might surprise you.


Writing Creative Nonfiction

Writing Creative Nonfiction

Author: Theodore Albert Rees Cheney

Publisher:

Published: 1991

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13:

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What do writers as diverse as Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, Joan Didion, and Hunter S. Thompson have in common? All are masters of the art of writing creative nonfiction, capable of infusing the most prosaic of topics with wit, poignancy, and style. "Writing Creative Nonfiction" outlines the tried-and-true techniques that such writers use to craft brilliant essays, articles, and book-length works, making the tools of trade accessible to those of us who have always dreamed of making our mark in publishing. You'll learn how to write gripping opening sentences; use dialogue and even overheard conversations to bring characters to life on the page: and conduct and incorporate research to add depth and breadth to your work. With the demand for content in both traditional and emerging medias at an all-time high, you too can become a cultural critic, biographer, or esteemed essayist with the help of this indispensable guide.