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.
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!
Get the Knowledge Without the College! You are a writer. You dream of sharing your words with the world, and you're willing to put in the hard work to achieve success. You may have even considered earning your MFA, but for whatever reason--tuition costs, the time commitment, or other responsibilities--you've never been able to do it. Or maybe you've been looking for a self-guided approach so you don't have to go back to school. This book is for you. DIY MFA is the do-it-yourself alternative to a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing. By combining the three main components of a traditional MFA--writing, reading, and community--it teaches you how to craft compelling stories, engage your readers, and publish your work. Inside you'll learn how to: • Set customized goals for writing and learning. • Generate ideas on demand. • Outline your book from beginning to end. • Breathe life into your characters. • Master point of view, voice, dialogue, and more. • Read with a "writer's eye" to emulate the techniques of others. • Network like a pro, get the most out of writing workshops, and submit your work successfully. Writing belongs to everyone--not only those who earn a degree. With DIY MFA, you can take charge of your writing, produce high-quality work, get published, and build a writing career.
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.
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.
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 true story of a German-Jewish love that overcame the burdens of the past. Finalist for the 2017 Book of the Year Award by the Chicago Writers Association “A book that is hard to put down.” —Jerusalem Post “This book confirms Annette Gendler as an indispensable Jewish voice for our time." —Yossi Klein Halevi, author of Like Dreamers "The ghosts of the past haunt a woman’s search for herself in this thoughtful, poignant memoir about the transformative power of love and faith.” —Hillary Jordan, author of Mudbound, now a Netflix movie “An exquisitely written conversion story which expounds upon personal and collective identity.” —Washington Independent Review of Books “A compelling, gracefully written memoir about the impact of the past on the present.” —Michael Steinberg, author of Still Pitching History was repeating itself when Annette fell in love with Harry, a Jewish man, the son of Holocaust survivors, in Germany in 1985. Her Great-Aunt Resi had been married to a Jew in Czechoslovakia before World War II―a marriage that, while happy, put the entire family in mortal danger once the Nazis took over their hometown in 1938. Annette and Harry’s love, meanwhile, was the ultimate nightmare for Harry’s family. Not only was their son considering marrying a non-Jew, but a German. Weighed down by the burdens of their family histories, Annette and Harry kept their relationship secret for three years, until they could forge a path into the future and create a new life in Chicago. Annette found a spiritual home in Judaism―a choice that paved the way toward acceptance by Harry’s family, and redemption for some of the wounds of her own family’s past.
Creative nonfiction — prose that fuses the conventions of reportage with the aesthetics of literature and the passion for self-expression — is emerging as one of the most important contemporary genres, one that captures the imagination and commitment of student writers. Creating Nonfiction provides everything students need to begin to understand and write creative nonfiction: an engaging rhetoric, an unsurpassed anthology, and a wealth of editorial features that inspire writing.
This book shows writers of all ages how to find and develop nonfiction topics that matter to them�in ways that make readers care too. It emphasizes writing for discovery, not just writing what one knows. It emphasizes a strong authorial presence (voice) and a convincing point of view. Most important, it not only tells but also shows how writing true involves the poet's attention to language, the fiction writer's power of storytellling, the journalist's pursuit of fact, and the scholar's reliance on research. The first part of the book offers ten practical chapters from getting started to turning first ideas into finished work. Topics include: The Power of the Notebook, Ten Ways to a Draft, Taking Shape, Finding Voice, Twenty Ways to Talk About Writing, The Craft of Revision, The Role of Research, The Ethics of Creative Nonfiction, Workshopping a Draft, and Exploring New Media. The second part of the book is an anthology of the best nonfiction writing for aspiring writers to read and study in order to write with creativity, integrity, and authenticity. Organized by form, they include Memoir, Personal Essay, Portrait, Essay of Place, Narrative Journalism, and Short Shorts. Selections represent a variety of experience from classic masters (E.B.White and George Orwell) to major contemporary writers (such as Alice Walker, Stephen Dunn, and Scott Russell Sanders) to up and coming writers (such as E.J. Levy and Amy Butcher). The anthology also includes "Stories of Craft," with five prominent writers, including Patricia Hampl and Sue Miller, describing the challenges and rewards of writing engaging nonfiction.
Writers of creative non-fiction are often expected to be able to recreate reality, to deal with, or even access, a singular truth. But the author, like any human, is not an automaton remotely tasked with capturing a life or an event. Whether we tell stories and understand them as fiction or non-fiction, or whether we draw away from these classifications, writers craft and shape writing all writing. No experience exists on a flat plane, and recounting or interpreting events will always involve some element of artistic manipulation: every instance, exchange, discussion, event is open to multiple interpretations and can be described in many ways, all of which are potentially truthful. Writing Creative Non-Fiction: Determining the Form contains essays and original writing from novelists, poets, songwriters, musicians and academics. The book covers topics that range from explorations of the role of the author, definitions and representations of the form, self and illness, to the spectral elements of non-fiction and its role in historical narratives. The essays included in this volume address everything from memoir, biography and autobiography to a discussion of musical approaches to criticism and a non/fiction interview. The book identifies key writers including Christopher Isherwood, David Shields, B. S. Jonson, James Frey, Åsne Seierstad, John D'Agata, W. G. Sebald, Jonathan Coe, Hilary Mantel, James Kelman, Liz Lochhead and Arthur Frank and is essential reading for students, researchers and writers of creative non-fiction. Contents Notes on Contributors Pathways to Determining Form Laura Tansley and Micaela Maftei A Bulgarian Journey Kapka Kassabova At the Will of Our Stories John I MacArtney She and I: Composite Characters in Creative Non-Fiction Katie Karnehm More Lies Please: Biography and the Duty to Abandon Truth Rodge Glass Ghosts of the Real: The Spectral Memoir Helen Pleasance One doesn t have much but oneself : Christopher Isherwood s Investigation into Identity and the Manipulation of Form in The Memorial Rebecca Gordon Stewart Menna, Martha and Me: The Possibilities of Epistolary Criticism Rhiannon Marks An Introduction to Schizoanalysis : The Development of a Musical Approach to Criticism Jo Collinson Scott Eyes! Birds! Walnuts! Pennies! Erin Soros Just Words Erin Soros It is in their Nature to Change: On Mis-leading Elizabeth Reeder Index
