nonfiction literary terms essay

An Introduction to Literary Nonfiction

Senjuti Patra

Senjuti was born and raised in Bankura, a small town in India. A reluctant economist, fierce feminist and history enthusiast, she spends most of her time reading. Her interaction with other people is largely limited to running away from them or launching into passionate monologues about her last perfect read or her latest fictional crush.

View All posts by Senjuti Patra

Literary nonfiction, also called creative nonfiction, is an umbrella term that includes all writing that is based in reality and has been written with specific attention to the craft of writing, using literary techniques to talk about subjects that are not made up. Potentially any kind of nonfiction can be literary nonfiction, except, perhaps, technical and academic writing whose subjects and purpose demand precision and unambiguity. As Creative Nonfiction puts it, literary or creative nonfiction is simply true stories, well told.

Fiction and nonfiction have always shared techniques and approaches. Many novelists do extensive research to recreate a place or a time in the pages of their novels, and this enables them to create intricately detailed scenes, which help draw the reader in. Even speculative fiction narratives that operate in their own worlds conceived by the writers’ imagination often draw from the real world, and from the works of writers before them. Similarly, a mere recitation of dry facts do not make for compelling or convincing reading, and all influential works of nonfiction are characterized by a mastery of the craft and excellence in style. It is, then, a little unfair to define literary nonfiction as nonfiction that borrows elements of style and narration from fiction — since writers of nonfiction have skillfully wielded these tools in their work in all of literary history.

Literary Nonfiction: the Question of Ethics and the Line Between Fact and Fiction

Even though literary or creative nonfiction has been around for a long time, the relatively recent nomenclature and its establishment as a broad genre receiving wider readership has people questioning the propriety of using creativity in the presentation of facts. Can a text that creates or manipulates facts pass off as creative nonfiction?

In a 1987 article, Eric Heyne, following a distinction between fictional and factual narratives originally proposed by by John Searle, breaks down the determination of the factual nature of a text into two parts. The first is factual status — whether the writer intends their work to be perceived as factual. The second is factual adequacy — how true the facts that the writer proposes are. In other words, the intention of the author is what determines whether or not a text will be read as nonfiction. On the other hand, for a text, literary or not, to be factually adequate, or good nonfiction, its factual correctness has to pass the scrutiny of its readers.

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The scope for creativity in nonfiction is vast in style, structure, and narrative, but writers of good creative nonfiction cannot create facts or use their craft to deceive readers or manipulate the truth. The contract between the writer and the reader should be explicit — the narrative should allow the reader to distinguish between creative maneuvers by the author and objective truths. Literary nonfiction often involves more in-depth research, for the literary narrative has to be detailed to be compelling, and at the same time factually correct.

Types of Literary Nonfiction

Almost any subject under the sun can be approached with a creative, refreshing take and with the right arsenal of literary tools by the right person. Understandably, literary nonfiction comes in many forms. It can be personal, like memoirs, autobiography, or personal essays. It can be topical, like history, science writing, and nature writing. Here are some popular sub-genres of literary nonfiction, with reading recommendations for each.

Lyrical Memoir

The lyrical memoir is probably the flag bearer of the genre at the moment, with its seamless blending of personal stories with larger themes that resonate with readers, as well as poetic, engrossing narratives. Unlike autobiography, in which the author talks about their whole life, memoirs have a specific focus. Following are two examples, and you can find more here .

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou’s beautiful coming-of-age memoir is a classic of the sub-genre. This beautiful book about a young girl overcoming trauma inflicted on her by an oppressive racist society does not shy away from discussing intimate personal details, and does so with stunningly poetic prose.

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

There are three threads in this book — the author’s grief at the sudden death of her father, her experience training a goshawk she adopted shortly after her father’s death, and the writer T.H. White, who shared the author’s interest in falconry. These threads are artfully woven together in a moving memoir that is also great nature writing.

Personal Essays

In personal essays, a writer might explore a variety of subjects through a subjective, personal stand point. The are often anchored by a personal event that impacted the writer’s life or world view in a major way. Personal essay collections are a great point of entry into the genre, with their shorter format and specific narrative threads that hold the reader’s interest. Here are a couple to get you started.

Notes of a Native S on by James Baldwin

A classic of American literature, Notes of a Native Son is a collection of ten essays that established James Baldwin as a leading literary voice. The essays cover a variety of topics, ranging from literary criticism, life in Harlem to lives of black people outside America, informed by Baldwin’s experiences as an African American at the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

This collection of essays is a classic of the genre, and a portrait of America, especially California, in the 1960s. Joan Didion is one of the most prominent authors of literary nonfiction, and two of her more recent works, The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights , are powerful explorations of grief.

Want more? Here is a list of 50 must-read contemporary essay collections .

Science Writing

Creative, literary treatment of scientific subjects make them accessible to lay-readers, and there are many authors today who write on a wide variety of scientific topics in engaging prose. My personal favorite are science history books, which not only break down complex scientific concepts, but also provide an account of the path through which humans arrived at this knowledge, a journey which is often as nail-biting as thrillers.

The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee

This is a superbly written book about the science and the history of genetics. Told with enormous empathy and backed by thorough research and expertise, the story of the discovery of the code that governs our lives is one of the most interesting stories I have ever read. Mukherjee’s Pulitzer prize winning history of cancer, The Emperor of all Maladies , is equally brilliant.

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

Silent Spring is credited with having launched the modern environmental movement. Centered around the adverse effects of the indiscriminate use of pesticides, this book was a timely warning against human arrogance about the ability to exploit the natural world. The far-reaching and long-lasting impact of Silent Spring is a testimony to the power of Carson’s writing.

You can find more recommendations here .

Narrative Journalism

Narrative journalism is reportage that uses techniques of storytelling to construct a gripping, but factual narrative. Through the use of literary techniques, narrative journalism often manages to have greater sway over the opinions of readers, and authors of this genre have sometimes successfully drawn public attention to injustices and catalyzed change.

Ten Days in a Mad-House by Nellie Bly

In 1887, Nellie Bly went undercover in one of New York City’s asylums to report first hand on the lives of its inhabitants. The horrors she bore witness to are the subject of this book, which is a precursor of both the stunt memoir and narrative journalism genres. Bly’s reportage shocked the public and eventually led to increased budget allocations for the asylum.

Hiroshima by John Hersey

John Hersey’s Hiroshima is one of the earliest examples of narrative journalism that helped usher in the age of New Journalism, as it was called then. Hersey interviewed six survivors of the nuclear attack, and these accounts opened the eyes of the American public to the enormous scale of the devastation that had been wreaked by the bombing and made them question the morality of nuclear warfare.

Here are some more examples of narrative journalism.

Narrative History

History is overflowing with important and exciting true stories waiting to be told. Any well written historical narrative can potentially read like a novel. Another genre that is a personal favorite, it is replete with gems that blend extensive research with skillful prose.

Figuring by Maria Popova

This book is written by Maria Popova, whose blog, Brain Pickings , is a great source for your daily dose of literary nonfiction. It is an ode to the never ending human search for meaning, through a narrative that blends together the lives of several artists, writers, scientists and visionaries, including Johannes Kepler, Maria Mitchell, Margaret Fuller, Emily Dickinson, and Rachel Carson, among others.

The Black Count by Tom Reiss

The Black Count is the true story of the man who inspired classics like The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers . General Alex Dumas, father of Alexander Dumas, was the son of a formerly enslaved person who rose through the ranks of the French Army. This true story of his life is an engaging tale of adventure in a multi-racial society.

Quotidian Nonfiction

I stumbled across this beautiful term in an essay in Creative Nonfiction , and it neatly fits two of the best nonfiction books I read recently. In the essay, Patrick Madden, author of Quotidiana , a collection of essays inspired by the commonplace, talks about the pleasures of slowing down to meditate on the ordinary components of everyday life. Another relatively recent and well known example of this category is Ross Gay’s uplifting Book of Delights . Indeed, there is something refreshingly calming to read about the quotidian, and the languorous, reflective tone of such books can accommodate exquisitely elegant prose.

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey

When Elisabeth Tova Bailey was struck by a mysterious illness that confined her to the bed, she found company in a common woodland snail that was left in a pot of violets in her sick room by her friend. This book is a beautiful tale of resilience told through the mundane occurrences in the lives of the snail and its human observer.

How I Became A Tree by Sumana Roy

In this gorgeous book, Sumana Roy muses about the lives of trees, and what it would mean to live like one. She talks about tiny details from the natural world at length, putting into perspective our own cluttered existence within it.

The books and sub-genres discussed in this article are a very small fraction of what literary nonfiction has to offer, but I hope it will serve as a good introduction — especially if you are primarily a reader of fiction who is trying to get into nonfiction. Once you are through with this list, we have more books that you can read here and here .

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An Introduction to Literary Nonfiction

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Like literary journalism , literary nonfiction is a type of prose that employs the literary techniques usually associated with fiction or poetry to report on persons, places, and events in the real world without altering facts.

The genre of literary nonfiction, also known as creative nonfiction, is broad enough to include travel writing, nature writing, science writing, sports writing, biography, autobiography, memoir, interviews, and familiar and personal essays. Literary nonfiction is alive and well, but it is not without its critics.

Here are several examples of literary nonfiction from noted authors:

• "The Cries of London," by Joseph Addison
• "Death of a Soldier," by Louisa May Alcott
• "A Glorious Resurrection," by Frederick Douglass
• "The San Francisco Earthquake," by Jack London
• "The Watercress Girl," by Henry Mayhew

Observations

• "The word literary masks all kinds of ideological concerns, all kinds of values, and is finally more a way of looking at a text , a way of reading...than an inherent property of a text." (Chris Anderson, "Introduction: Literary Nonfiction and Composition" in "Literary Nonfiction: Theory, Criticism, Pedagogy")
• Fictional Devices in Literary Nonfiction "One of the profound changes to have affected serious writing in recent years has been the spread of fiction and poetry techniques into literary nonfiction: the 'show, don’t tell' requirement, the emphasis on concrete sensory detail and avoidance of abstraction, the use of recurrent imagery as symbolic motif, the taste for the present tense, even the employment of unreliable narrators. There has always been some crossover between the genres. I am no genre purist, and welcome the cross-pollination, and have dialogue scenes in my own personal essays (as did Addison and Steele). But it is one thing to accept using dialogue scenes or lyrical imagery in a personal narrative, and quite another to insist that every part of that narrative be rendered in scenes or concrete sensory descriptions . A previous workshop teacher had told one of my students, 'Creative non-fiction is the application of fictional devices to memory.' With such narrow formulae, indifferent to nonfiction's full range of options, is it any wonder that students have started to shy away from making analytical distinctions or writing reflective commentary?" (Phillip Lopate, "To Show and to Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction")
• Practical Nonfiction vs. Literary Nonfiction "Practical nonfiction is designed to communicate information in circumstances where the quality of the writing is not considered as important as the content. Practical nonfiction appears mainly in popular magazines, newspaper Sunday supplements, feature articles, and in self-help and how-to books... "Literary nonfiction puts emphasis on the precise and skilled use of words and tone , and the assumption that the reader is as intelligent as the writer. While information is included, insight about that information, presented with some originality, may predominate. Sometimes the subject of literary nonfiction may not at the onset be of great interest to the reader, but the character of the writing may lure the reader into that subject. "Literary nonfiction appears in books, in some general magazines such as The New Yorker , Harper's, the Atlantic , Commentary , the New York Review of Books , in many so-called little or small-circulation magazines, in a few newspapers regularly and in some other newspapers from time to time, occasionally in a Sunday supplement, and in book review media." (Sol Stein, Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies)
• Literary Nonfiction in the English Department "It might be the case that composition studies...needs the category of 'literary nonfiction' to assert its place in the hierarchy of discourse comprising the modern English department. As English departments became increasingly centered on the interpretation of texts, it became increasingly important for compositionists to identify texts of their own." (Douglas Hesse, "The Recent Rise of Literary Nonfiction: A Cautionary Assay" in "Composition Theory for the Postmodern Classroom") "Whether critics are arguing about contemporary American nonfiction for historical or theoretical purposes, one of the primary (overt and usually stated) aims is to persuade other critics to take literary nonfiction seriously—to grant it the status of poetry, drama, and fiction." (Mark Christopher Allister, "Refiguring the Map of Sorrow: Nature Writing and Autobiography")
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• Blurring the lines: what is Literary Nonfiction?

Nonfiction. The very term conjures images. Dry facts, historical accounts, and scientific reports. But what if the lines between fact and storytelling are blurred? A captivating genre that reads more like a novel than a textbook? Enter literary nonfiction. A compelling world where truth meets artistry, and the real becomes riveting.

What is literary nonfiction?

Literary nonfiction is also known as creative nonfiction. It defies the traditional boundaries of factual writing. It delves into true stories, historical events, and personal experiences. It weaves them with the narrative techniques and stylistic flourishes more commonly associated with fiction. Think vivid descriptions, evocative language, and character development. All are employed to illuminate the complexities of the real world.

This fusion of fact and artistry has been around for a while. From the philosophical musings of Montaigne's 'Essays' to the social commentary of George Orwell's 'Down and Out in Paris and London'. Authors have long explored the intersection of truth and storytelling. However, the term 'literary nonfiction' gained prominence in the latter half of the 20th century. Writers like Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, and Joan Didion pushed the boundaries of the genre.

Why choose literary nonfiction?

So, why opt for literary nonfiction over traditional journalism or academic writing? Here are some key reasons:

• Engagement. Literary nonfiction electrifies facts. By employing narrative techniques, it draws readers in. It makes complex topics more accessible and engaging. Look at Oliver Sacks's ‘ The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat ’. Neurological case studies become tales of human resilience and the power of the mind.
• Emotional connection. Literary nonfiction doesn't shy away from the emotional core of a story. Authors can delve into the motivations, fears, and desires of individuals caught up in the topic. Historical events, scientific discoveries, or personal journeys. This emotional connection allows readers not just to understand the 'what'. It’s also the 'why' behind the facts. This fosters empathy and a deeper understanding of the subject matter. 
• Multiple perspectives. Journalism often presents a single, objective viewpoint. Literary nonfiction can incorporate multiple perspectives. This allows readers to engage with different sides of an issue. They can grapple with conflicting narratives and form their own conclusions. For instance, John Krakauer's 'Into Thin Air'. This chronicles the Mount Everest disaster. It weaves together the experiences of climbers, guides, and rescue personnel. This gives readers a multifaceted view of the tragedy.

The allure of the ambiguous: ethical challenges

The marriage of fact and artistry has undeniable benefits. But it also raises questions about the nature of truth in literary nonfiction. Here are some challenges to consider:

• Subjectivity. The author's voice and perspective are central to literary nonfiction. This inevitably introduces subjectivity into the narrative. Events and experiences are filtered through the author's lens. This potentially shapes the reader's perception of the truth. Consider Rebecca Solnit's 'Men Explain Things to Me'. This is a collection of essays exploring gender power dynamics. Her anecdotes are powerful. Some might argue that these are subjective experiences and not necessarily representative of all women. However, many women can relate.
• Scene construction
• Character development

These elements enhance readability. But they raise questions about the line between factual representation and artistic embellishment. Did a conversation truly play out exactly as described? Did the author fabricate internal monologues to enhance a character's portrayal? The ambiguity can be both intriguing and unsettling.

• Accuracy concerns. The reliance on personal narratives and subjective interpretations can lead to accuracy concerns. Literary nonfiction authors generally strive for truthfulness. Inevitably, memories can be unreliable. Eyewitness accounts can be subjective. Readers need to approach the genre with a critical eye. Consider the author's background, potential biases, and the sources used for research.

Navigating the genre

The potential for subjectivity and creative license doesn't negate the value of literary nonfiction.  Here are some tips for approaching the genre critically:

• Research the author. Learn about the writer's background, biases, and previous work. This context can help you understand their perspective and potential slants within the narrative.
• Consider the sources. Look for authors who use credible sources to substantiate their claims. Especially for historical events or scientific topics.
• Read with a critical eye. Don't simply accept everything as fact. Question the author's choices. Note the evidence presented. Be aware of potential biases shaping the narrative.

Literary nonfiction offers a unique lens on the world. It allows us to explore complex realities through the power of storytelling. It invites us to both learn about topics and feel the emotional weight of these experiences. By blurring the lines between fact and fiction, it fosters a deeper connection with the subject matter. This prompts us to question, analyse, and ultimately, form our own understanding of the truth.

Case studies

To truly appreciate the power of literary nonfiction, let's delve into some notable examples.

Truman Capote's 'In Cold Blood'

This groundbreaking work of investigative journalism redefined the genre. Capote meticulously researched the Clutter family murders. He wove factual details with an intimate portrayal of the victims, perpetrators, and the surrounding community. The result is a chilling exploration of multiple themes. Violence, the American psyche, and the ethical complexities of storytelling.

Susan Orlean's 'The Orchid Thief'

This is a captivating blend of true crime and botanical exploration. It follows the bizarre story of orchid poacher John Laroche. Orlean goes beyond the crime itself. She delves into the world of orchid collectors and enthusiasts.  The book raises questions about obsession, desire, and the value placed on the natural world.

Ta-Nehisi Coates's 'Between the World and Me'

This powerful letter to Coates's son explores the realities of being Black in America. It weaves personal anecdotes with historical accounts of racial injustice, creating a poignant and thought-provoking exploration of race, identity, and the struggle for freedom.

Laura Kelly

Laura is a freelance writer and worked at Readable for a number of years. Laura is well-versed in optimising content for readability and Readable's suite of tools. She aims to write guides that help you make the most out of Readable.

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nonfictional prose

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nonfictional prose , any literary work that is based mainly on fact, even though it may contain fictional elements. Examples are the essay and biography.

Defining nonfictional prose literature is an immensely challenging task. This type of literature differs from bald statements of fact, such as those recorded in an old chronicle or inserted in a business letter or in an impersonal message of mere information. As used in a broad sense, the term nonfictional prose literature here designates writing intended to instruct (but does not include highly scientific and erudite writings in which no aesthetic concern is evinced), to persuade, to convert, or to convey experience or reality through “factual” or spiritual revelation. Separate articles cover biography and literary criticism .

Nonfictional prose genres cover an almost infinite variety of themes, and they assume many shapes. In quantitative terms, if such could ever be valid in such nonmeasurable matters, they probably include more than half of all that has been written in countries having a literature of their own. Nonfictional prose genres have flourished in nearly all countries with advanced literatures. The genres include political and polemical writings, biographical and autobiographical literature, religious writings, and philosophical, and moral or religious writings.

After the Renaissance, from the 16th century onward in Europe, a personal manner of writing grew in importance. The author strove for more or less disguised self-revelation and introspective analysis, often in the form of letters, private diaries, and confessions. Also of increasing importance were aphorisms after the style of the ancient Roman philosophers Seneca and Epictetus, imaginary dialogues , and historical narratives, and later, journalistic articles and extremely diverse essays. From the 19th century, writers in Romance and Slavic languages especially, and to a far lesser extent British and American writers, developed the attitude that a literature is most truly modern when it acquires a marked degree of self-awareness and obstinately reflects on its purpose and technique. Such writers were not content with imaginative creation alone: they also explained their work and defined their method in prefaces, reflections, essays, self-portraits, and critical articles. The 19th-century French poet Charles Baudelaire asserted that no great poet could ever quite resist the temptation to become also a critic : a critic of others and of himself. Indeed, most modern writers, in lands other than the United States , whether they be poets, novelists, or dramatists, have composed more nonfictional prose than poetry, fiction , or drama. In the instances of such monumental figures of 20th-century literature as the poets Ezra Pound , T.S. Eliot , and William Butler Yeats , or the novelists Thomas Mann and André Gide , that part of their output may well be considered by posterity to be equal in importance to their more imaginative writing.

It is virtually impossible to attempt a unitary characterization of nonfictional prose. The concern that any definition is a limitation, and perhaps an exclusion of the essential, is nowhere more apposite than to this inordinately vast and variegated literature. Ever since the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers devised literary genres , some critics have found it convenient to arrange literary production into kinds or to refer it to modes.

Obviously, a realm as boundless and diverse as nonfictional prose literature cannot be characterized as having any unity of intent, of technique, or of style. It can be defined, very loosely, only by what it is not. Many exceptions, in such a mass of writings, can always be brought up to contradict any rule or generalization. No prescriptive treatment is acceptable for the writing of essays, of aphorisms, of literary journalism , of polemical controversy, of travel literature, of memoirs and intimate diaries. No norms are recognized to determine whether a dialogue , a confession, a piece of religious or of scientific writing, is excellent, mediocre , or outright bad, and each author has to be relished, and appraised, chiefly in his own right. “The only technique,” the English critic F.R. Leavis wrote in 1957, “is that which compels words to express an intensively personal way of feeling.” Intensity is probably useful as a standard; yet it is a variable, and often elusive , quality, possessed by polemicists and by ardent essayists to a greater extent than by others who are equally great. “Loving, and taking the liberties of a lover” was Virginia Woolf ’s characterization of the 19th-century critic William Hazlitt ’s style: it instilled passion into his critical essays. But other equally significant English essayists of the same century, such as Charles Lamb or Walter Pater , or the French critic Hippolyte Taine , under an impassive mask, loved too, but differently. Still other nonfictional writers have been detached, seemingly aloof, or, like the 17th-century French epigrammatist La Rochefoucauld, sarcastic. Their intensity is of another sort.

Prose that is nonfictional is generally supposed to cling to reality more closely than that which invents stories, or frames imaginary plots. Calling it “realistic,” however, would be a gross distortion. Since nonfictional prose does not stress inventiveness of themes and of characters independent of the author’s self, it appears in the eyes of some moderns to be inferior to works of imagination. In the middle of the 20th century an immensely high evaluation was placed on the imagination, and the adjective “imaginative” became a grossly abused cliché. Many modern novels and plays, however, were woefully deficient in imaginative force, and the word may have been bandied about so much out of a desire for what was least possessed. Many readers are engrossed by travel books, by descriptions of exotic animal life, by essays on the psychology of other nations, by Rilke’s notebooks or by Samuel Pepys’s diary far more than by poetry or by novels that fail to impose any suspension of disbelief. There is much truth in Oscar Wilde ’s remark that “the highest criticism is more creative than creation and the primary aim of the critic is to see the object as in itself it really is not.” A good deal of imagination has gone not only into criticism but also into the writing of history , of essays, of travel books, and even of the biographies or the confessions that purport to be true to life as it really happened, as it was really experienced.

The imagination at work in nonfictional prose, however, would hardly deserve the august name of “primary imagination” reserved by the 19th-century English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge to creators who come close to possessing semidivine powers. Rather, imagination is displayed in nonfictional prose in the fanciful invention of decorative details, in digressions practiced as an art and assuming a character of pleasant nonchalance, in establishing a familiar contact with the reader through wit and humour. The variety of themes that may be touched upon in that prose is almost infinite. The treatment of issues may be ponderously didactic and still belong within the literary domain. For centuries, in many nations, in Asiatic languages, in medieval Latin, in the writings of the humanists of the Renaissance, and in those of the Enlightenment, a considerable part of literature has been didactic . The concept of art for art’s sake is a late and rather artificial development in the history of culture , and it did not reign supreme even in the few countries in which it was expounded in the 19th century. The ease with which digressions may be inserted in that type of prose affords nonfictional literature a freedom denied to writing falling within other genres. The drawback of such a nondescript literature lies in judging it against any standard of perfection, since perfection implies some conformity with implicit rules and the presence, however vague, of standards such as have been formulated for comedy, tragedy, the ode, the short story and even (in this case, more honoured in the breach than the observance) the novel . The compensating grace is that in much nonfictional literature that repudiates or ignores structure the reader is often delighted with an air of ease and of nonchalance and with that rarest of all virtues in the art of writing: naturalness.

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English CSJM. Who Do You Think You Are: A Creative Nonfiction Workshop

Instructor: Saeed Jones Thursday, 12:00-2:45 pm | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students People don’t just happen. In this workshop-based class, students will explore the capacity of memoir and cultural criticism to illuminate their understanding of memory, connection, and self-making. This course is as invested in the craft of writing as it is in interrogating how storytelling functions within systems of power. Students will be asked to consider what the work is doing to us, and what we are using our own work to do to others. Classes will alternate between workshop discussions, in-class writing exercises and close readings of nonfiction by Lucille Clifton, Eula Biss, Carmen Maria Machado, Toni Morrison, Vivian Gornick, Hanif Abdurraqib, and Kiese Laymon among others.   Supplemental Application Information:  If you are interested in joining the course, please complete this application by August 12, 2024. A maximum of 12 students will be selected to join the course. The application requires a 2-3 page writing sample and a 250 work maximum reflection on why this course appeals to you. We will follow up with everyone who applies for the course by email once decisions are made. This course is also offered through the Harvard Medical School as MMH 709.

English CWNM. Nonfiction Writing for Magazines

Instructor: Maggie Doherty TBD | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students

This course will focus on the genres of nonfiction writing commonly published in magazines: the feature, the profile, the personal essay, and longform arts criticism. We will read and discuss examples of such pieces from magazines large (Harper’s, The New Yorker) and small (n+1, The Drift); our examples will be drawn from the last several years. We will discuss both the process of writing such pieces—research, reporting, drafting, editing—and the techniques required to write informative, engaging, elegant nonfiction. In addition to short writing exercises performed in class and outside of class, each student will write one long piece in the genre of their choosing over the course of the semester, workshopping the piece twice, at different stages of completion. Although some attention will be paid to pitching and placing work in magazines, the focus of the course will be on the writing process itself.

English CNYA. Creative Nonfiction Workshop: Young Adult Writing

Instructor:  Melissa Cundieff Thursday, 3:00-5:45pm | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site

In this workshop-based class, students will consider themes that intersect with the Young Adult genre: gender and sexuality, romantic and platonic relationships and love/heartbreak, family, divorce and parental relationships, disability, neurodivergence, drug use, the evolution/fracturing of childhood innocence, environmentalism, among others. Students will write true stories about their lived lives with these themes as well as intended audience (ages 12-18) specifically in mind. For visual artists, illustrating one’s work/essays is something that I invite but of course do not require. We will read work by Sarah Prager, Robin Ha, ND Stevenson, Laurie Hals Anderson, Dashka Slater,  and Jason Reynolds. Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm EDT on Thursday, August 22) Supplemental Application Information:  Applications for this class should include a 2-3 page (double-spaced if prose, single-spaced if poetry) creating writing sample of any genre (nonfiction, fiction, poetry), or combination of genres. Additionally, I ask that students submit a 250-word reflection on their particular relationship with creative writing and why this course appeals to them. This class is open to students of all writing levels and experience.

English CMMU. Creative Nonfiction Workshop: Using Music

Instructor: Melissa Cundieff Tuesday, 12:00-2:45pm | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site

In this workshop-based class, students will think deeply about how music is often at the center of their experiences, may it be as a song, an album, an artist, their own relationship with an instrument, etc. This class will entail writing true stories about one's life in which the personal and music orbit and/or entangle each other. This will include some journalism and criticism, but above all it will ask you to describe how and why music matters to your lived life. We will read work by Hayao Miyazaki, Jia Tolentino, Kaveh Akbar, Oliver Sacks, Susan Sontag, Adrian Matejka, among many others, (as well as invite and talk with guest speaker(s)). This class is open to all levels. Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm EDT on Thursday, August 22) Supplemental Application Information:  Applications for this class should include a 2-3 page (double-spaced if prose, single-spaced if poetry) creating writing sample of any genre (nonfiction, fiction, poetry), or combination of genres. Additionally, I ask that students submit a 250-word reflection on their particular relationship with creative writing and why this course appeals to them. This class is open to students of all writing levels and experience.

English CIHR. Reading and Writing the Personal Essay: Workshop

Instructor:  Michael Pollan Monday, 3:00-5:45 pm | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site

There are few literary forms quite as flexible as the personal essay. The word comes from the French verb essai, “to attempt,” hinting at the provisional or experimental mood of the genre. The conceit of the personal essay is that it captures the individual’s act of thinking on the fly, typically in response to a prompt or occasion. The form offers the rare freedom to combine any number of narrative tools, including memoir, reportage, history, political argument, anecdote, and reflection. In this writing workshop, we will read essays beginning with Montaigne, who more or less invented the form, and then on to a varied selection of his descendants, including George Orwell, E.B. White, James Baldwin, Susan Sontag, Joan Didion, David Foster Wallace and Rebecca Solnit. We will draft and revise essays of our own in a variety of lengths and types including one longer work of ambition. A central aim of the course will be to help you develop a voice on the page and learn how to deploy the first person—not merely for the purpose of self-expression but as a tool for telling a story, conducting an inquiry or pressing an argument.

Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm EDT on Thursday, August 22)

Supplemental Application Information:  To apply, submit a brief sample of your writing in the first person along with a letter detailing your writing experience and reasons for wanting to take this course.

English CNFJ. Narrative Journalism

Instructor:  Darcy Frey Fall 2024: Thursday, 3:00-5:45 pm | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students. Course Site Spring 2025: TBD

In this hands-on writing workshop, we will study the art of narrative journalism in many different forms: Profile writing, investigative reportage, magazine features. How can a work of journalism be fashioned to tell a captivating story? How can the writer of nonfiction narratives employ the scene-by-scene construction usually found in fiction? How can facts become the building blocks of literature? Students will work on several short assignments to practice the nuts-and-bolts of reporting, then write a longer magazine feature to be workshopped in class and revised at the end of the term. We will take instruction and inspiration from the published work of literary journalists such as Joan Didion, John McPhee, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, and John Jeremiah Sullivan. This is a workshop-style class intended for undergraduate and graduate students at all levels of experience. No previous experience in English Department courses is required.

Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm ET on Thursday, August 22)

Supplemental Application Information:   Please write a substantive letter of introduction describing who you are as writer at the moment and where you hope to take your writing; what experience you may have had with journalism or narrative nonfiction; what excites you about narrative journalism in particular; and what you consider to be your strengths and weaknesses as a writer. Additionally, please submit 3-5 pages of journalism or narrative nonfiction or, if you have not yet written much nonfiction, an equal number of pages of narrative fiction.

English CMFG. Past Selves and Future Ghosts

Instructor:  Melissa Cundieff Spring 2024: Please login to the course catalog at my.harvard.edu for meetings times & location Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site Spring 2025: TBD As memoirist and author Melissa Febos puts it: “The narrator is never you, and the sooner we can start thinking of ourselves on the page that way, the better for our work. That character on the page is just this shaving off of the person that was within a very particular context, intermingled with bits of perspective from all the time since — it’s a very specific little cocktail of pieces of the self and memory and art … it’s a very weird thing. And then it’s frozen in the pages.” With each essay and work of nonfiction we produce in this workshop-based class, the character we portray, the narrator we locate, is never stagnant, instead we are developing a persona, wrought from the experience of our vast selves and our vast experiences. To that end, in this course, you will use the tools and stylistic elements of creative nonfiction, namely fragmentation, narrative, scene, point of view, speculation, and research to remix and retell all aspects of your experience and selfhood in a multiplicity of ways. I will ask that you focus on a particular time period or connected events, and through the course of the semester, you will reimagine and reify these events using different modes and techniques as modeled in the published and various works we read. We will also read, in their entireties, Melissa Febos's  Body Work: The Radical Work of Personal Narrative,  as well as Hanif Abdurraqib’s  They   Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us , which will aid our discussions and help us to better understand the difference between persona(s) and the many versions of self that inhabit us. Supplemental Application Information:  Applications for this class should include a 2-3 page (double-spaced if prose, single-spaced if poetry) creating writing sample of any genre (nonfiction, fiction, poetry), or combination of genres. Additionally, I ask that students submit a 250-word reflection on their particular relationship with creative writing and why this course appeals to them. This class is open to students of all writing levels and experience.

English CMDR. Creative Nonfiction: Departure and Return: "Home" as Doorway to Difference and Identity

Instructor: Melissa Cundieff Please login to the course catalog at my.harvard.edu for meetings times & location Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site

In this workshop-based class, students will be asked to investigate something that directly or indirectly connects everyone: what it means to leave a place, or one's home, or one's land, and to return to it, willingly or unwillingly. This idea is inherently open-ended because physical spaces are, of course, not our only means of departure and/or return-- but also our politics, our genders, our relationships with power, and our very bodies. Revolution, too, surrounds us, on both larger and private scales, as does looking back on what once was, what caused that initial departure. Students will approach "home" as both a literal place and a figurative mindscape. We will read essays by Barbara Ehrenreich, Ocean Vuong, Natasha Sajé, Elena Passarello, Hanif Abdurraqib, Alice Wong, and Eric L. Muller, among others. Supplemental Application Information:  Applications for this class should include a 2-3 page (double-spaced if prose, single-spaced if poetry) creating writing sample of any genre (nonfiction, fiction, poetry), or combination of genres. Additionally, I ask that students submit a 250-word reflection on their particular relationship with creative writing and why this course appeals to them. This class is open to students of all writing levels and experience. Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm ET on Saturday, November 4)

English CGOT. The Other

Instructor:  Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah Thursday, 12:00-2:45 pm | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site

In this class, we will consider how literary non-fiction articulates or imagines difference, disdain, conflict, and dislike. We will also discuss the more technical and stylistic elements present in strong non-fiction, like reflection, observation, retrospection, scene-setting, description, complexity, and strong characterization. As we read and write, we will put these theoretical concerns into practice and play by writing two or three profiles about people you do not like, a place you don’t care for, an idea you oppose, or an object whose value eludes you. Your writing might be about someone who haunts you without your permission or whatever else gets under your skin, but ideally, your subject makes you uncomfortable, troubles you, and confounds you. We will interrogate how writers earn their opinion. And while it might be strange to think of literature as often having political aims, it would be ignorant to imagine that it does not. Non-fiction forces us to extend our understanding of point of view not just to be how the story unfolds itself technically–immersive reporting, transparent eyeball, third person limited, or third person omniscient--but also to identify who is telling this story and why. Some examples of the writing that we will read are Guy Debord,  Lucille Clifton, C.L.R. James, Pascale Casanova, W.G. Sebald, Jayne Cortez, AbouMaliq Simone, Greg Tate, Annie Ernaux, Edward Said, Mark Twain, Jacqueline Rose, Toni Morrison, Julia Kristeva, and Ryszard Kapuscinski. Supplemental Application Information:   Please submit a brief letter explaining why you're interested to take this class. Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm ET on Saturday, November 4)

English CMCC. Covid, Grief, and Afterimage

Instructor: Melissa Cundieff Wednesday, 3:00-5:45 pm | Location: Barker 269 Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site In this workshop-based course we will write about our personal lived experiences with loss and grief born from the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as how grief and grieving became a collective experience that is ongoing and persistent, like an afterimage or haunting. As part of our examination, we will consider intersections with other global, historical experiences and depictions of loss, including the murder of George Floyd and the AIDS epidemic. Readings will include essays by Leslie Jamison, Arundhati Roy, Susan Sontag, Eve Tuck and C. Ree, Matt Levin, and Alice Wong, among others. Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm EDT on Saturday, August 26) Supplemental Application Information:  Applications for this class should include a 3-5 page (double-spaced if prose, single-spaced if poetry) creating writing sample of any genre (nonfiction, fiction, poetry), or combination of genres. Additionally, I ask that students submit a 250 word reflection on their particular relationship with creative writing and why this course appeals to them. This class is open to students of all writing levels and experience.

Instructor: Melissa Cundieff Wednesday, 12:00-2:45 pm | Location: Barker 316 Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site As memoirist and author Melissa Febos puts it: “The narrator is never you, and the sooner we can start thinking of ourselves on the page that way, the better for our work. That character on the page is just this shaving off of the person that was within a very particular context, intermingled with bits of perspective from all the time since — it’s a very specific little cocktail of pieces of the self and memory and art … it’s a very weird thing. And then it’s frozen in the pages.” With each essay and work of nonfiction we produce in this workshop-based class, the character we portray, the narrator we locate, is never stagnant, instead we are developing a persona, wrought from the experience of our vast selves and our vast experiences. To that end, in this course, you will use the tools and stylistic elements of creative nonfiction, namely fragmentation, narrative, scene, point of view, speculation, and research to remix and retell all aspects of your experience and selfhood in a multiplicity of ways. I will ask that you focus on a particular time period or connected events, and through the course of the semester, you will reimagine and reify these events using different modes and techniques as modeled in the published and various works we read. We will also read, in their entireties, Melissa Febos's  Body Work: The Radical Work of Personal Narrative,  as well as Hanif Abdurraqib’s  They   Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us , which will aid our discussions and help us to better understand the difference between persona(s) and the many versions of self that inhabit us. Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm EDT on Saturday, August 26) Supplemental Application Information:  Applications for this class should include a 3-5 page (double-spaced if prose, single-spaced if poetry) creating writing sample of any genre (nonfiction, fiction, poetry), or combination of genres. Additionally, I ask that students submit a 250 word reflection on their particular relationship with creative writing and why this course appeals to them. This class is open to students of all writing levels and experience.

English CRGS. The Surrounds: Writing Interiority and Outsiderness

Instructor:  Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah Thursday, 12:00-2:45 pm | Location: Lamont 401 Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site

The essayist, the writer of non-fiction, has historically been an oracle of opinions that most often go unsaid. They do not traditionally reinforce a sense of insular collectivity, instead they often steer us towards a radical understanding of the moment that they write from. The best essayists unearth and organize messages from those most at the margins: the ignored, the exiled, the criminal, and the destitute. So, by writing about these people, the essayist is fated, most nobly or just as ignobly, to write about the ills and aftermaths of their nation’s worse actions. It is an obligation and also a very heavy burden.

In this class we will examine how the essay and many essayists have functioned as geographers of spaces that have long been forgotten. And we read a series of non-fiction pieces that trouble the question of interiority, belonging, the other, and outsiderness. And we will attempt to do a brief but comprehensive review of the essay as it functions as a barometer of the author’s times. This will be accomplished by reading the work of such writers as: Herodotus, William Hazlitt, Doris Lessing, Audre Lorde, Gay Talese, Binyavanga Wainaina, Jennifer Clement, V.S. Naipaul, Sei Shonagon, George Orwell, Ha Jin, Margo Jefferson, Simone White, and Joan Didion. This reading and discussion will inform our own writing practice as we write essays.

Everyone who is interested in this class should feel free to apply.

Supplemental Application Information:   Please submit a brief letter explaining why you're interested to take this class. Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm EDT on Saturday, August 26)

English CNFD. Creative Nonfiction

Instructor: Maggie Doherty Tuesday, 12:00-2:45 pm | Location: Sever 205 Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site This course is an overview of the creative nonfiction genre and the many different types of writing that are included within it: memoir, criticism, nature writing, travel writing, and more. Our readings will be both historical and contemporary: writers will include Virginia Woolf, James Baldwin, Joan Didion, Audre Lorde, Hilton Als, and Carmen Maria Machado. During the first half of the semester, we will read two pieces closely; we will use our class discussions to analyze how these writers use pacing, character, voice, tone, and structure to tell their stories. Students will complete short, informal writing assignments during this part of the semester, based on the genre of work we’re discussing that week. During the second half of the semester, each student will draft and workshop a longer piece of creative nonfiction in the genre(s) of their choosing, which they will revise by the end of the semester. Students will be expected to provide detailed feedback on the work of their peers. This course is open to writers at all levels; no previous experience in creative writing is required. Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm EDT on Saturday, August 26) Supplemental Application Information:  Please write a letter of introduction (1-2 pages) giving a sense of who you are, your writing experience, and your current goals for your writing. You may also include writers or nonfiction works that you admire, as well as any themes or genres you'd like to experiment with in the course. Please also include a 3-5-page writing sample, ideally of some kind of creative writing (nonfiction is preferred, but fiction would also be acceptable). If you don't have a creative sample, you may submit a sample of your academic writing.

English CACD. The Art of Criticism

Instructor: Maggie Doherty Wednesday, 12:00-2:45pm | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students Course Site

This course will consider critical writing about art–literary, visual, cinematic, musical, etc.—as an art in its own right. We will read and discuss criticism from a wide variety of publications, paying attention to the ways outlets and audience shape critical work. The majority of our readings will be from the last few years and will include pieces by Joan Acocella, Andrea Long Chu, Jason Farago, and Carina del Valle Schorske. Students will write several short writing assignments (500-1000 words), including a straight review, during the first half of the semester and share them with peers. During the second half of the semester, each student will write and workshop a longer piece of criticism about a work of art or an artist of their choosing. Students will be expected to read and provide detailed feedback on the work of their peers. Students will revise their longer pieces based on workshop feedback and submit them for the final assignment of the class. Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm EDT on Thursday, August 22) Supplemental Application Information:  Please write a letter of introduction (1-2 pages) giving a sense of who you are, your writing experience, and your current goals for your writing. Please also describe your relationship to the art forms and/or genres you're interested in engaging in the course. You may also list any writers or publications whose criticism you enjoy reading. Please also include a 3-5-page writing sample of any kind of prose writing. This could be an academic paper or it could be creative fiction or nonfiction.

English CNFR. Creative Nonfiction: Workshop

Instructor: Darcy Frey Fall 2024: Wednesday, 3:00-5:45 pm | Location: TBD Enrollment: Limited to 12 students. Course Site Spring 2025: TBD

Whether it takes the form of literary journalism, essay, memoir, or environmental writing, creative nonfiction is a powerful genre that allows writers to break free from the constraints commonly associated with nonfiction prose and reach for the breadth of thought and feeling usually accomplished only in fiction: the narration of a vivid story, the probing of a complex character, the argument of an idea, or the evocation of a place. Students will work on several short assignments to hone their mastery of the craft, then write a longer piece that will be workshopped in class and revised at the end of the term. We will take instruction and inspiration from published authors such as Joan Didion, James Baldwin, Ariel Levy, Alexander Chee, and Virginia Woolf. This is a workshop-style class intended for undergraduate and graduate students at all levels of experience. No previous experience in English Department courses is required. Apply via Submittable  (deadline: 11:59pm ET on Thursday, August 22)

Supplemental Application Information:   Please write a substantive letter of introduction describing who you are as writer at the moment and where you hope to take your writing; what experience you may have had with creative/literary nonfiction; what excites you about nonfiction in particular; and what you consider to be your strengths and weaknesses as a writer. Additionally, please submit 3-5 pages of creative/literary nonfiction (essay, memoir, narrative journalism, etc, but NOT academic writing) or, if you have not yet written much nonfiction, an equal number of pages of narrative fiction.

• Fiction (21)
• Nonfiction (18)
• Playwriting (4)
• Poetry (27)
• Screenwriting (5)

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Introduction

Most of your familiarity with essays probably comes from your own coursework. When you are assigned an essay for a class, perhaps you’ve been assigned an expository essay or a persuasive essay. In other words, you may have been assigned an essay with a clear purpose.

Literary essays are an exciting departure from those essays that many of us have been assigned. Employing techniques akin to those used by novelists, poets, and short story writers, essayists work to explore an idea. In fact, the word “essay” is etymologically linked to the notion of experimenting, weighing, or testing out. Essayists rarely produce straightforward manifestos or polemics. Instead, they entice the reader to care or understand or learn by using elements and techniques common to and found in literature. The more adept you are at recognizing those elements, the better you’ll be able to appreciate a work of creative nonfiction.

In order to analyze creative nonfiction, you should be aware of the different rhetorical structures writers use. Most of these structures will be familiar to you. What is important to consider, though, is how creative nonfiction writers use literary structures and techniques to achieve a particular effect.

Analyzing Nonfiction

Analysis of Nonfiction

Like analysis of fiction, poetry, and drama, analysis of a nonfiction requires more than understanding the point or the content of a nonfiction text. It requires that we go beyond what the text says explicitly and look at such factors as implied meaning, intended purpose and audience, the context in which the text was written, and how the author presents his/her argument. Before you can analyze, however, you must first comprehend the text and be able to provide an objective summary.

When working with a complex text, it is best to start with short excerpts, go through several reads of the piece if possible, and focus on moving from basic comprehension on the first read, to deeper, more complex understandings with each subsequent reading. For an example of an effective strategy, use the “SOAPSTone” strategy, which consists of a series of questions that provide a basis for analysis. Remember that regardless of analysis strategy, you must always provide evidence taken directly from the text to prove their point.

Subject: What is the subject? This is the general topic, content, and ideas contained in the text. Try to state the subject in only a few words or a short phrase so as to concisely summarize the topic for your own comprehension purposes.

Occasion: What is the occasion? It is the time and place of the piece; the context that encouraged the writing to happen. This can be a large occasion (an environment of ideas and emotions that swirl around a broad issue) or an immediate occasion or specific event.

Audience: Who is the audience? The audience is the group of readers to whom the piece is directed. The audience may be an individual, a small group, or a large group of people. It may be specific or more general.

Purpose: What is the purpose? It is the reason behind the text. What does the author want the audience to think or do as a result of this text? Does the author call for some specific action or is the purpose to convince the reader to think, feel or believe in a certain way? Too often readers do not consider this question, yet understanding the purpose of a nonfiction text is crucial in order to critically analyze the text.

Speaker: Who is the speaker? This is the voice that tells the story. What is their background? Is there a bias? Does that impact how the text is written and the points being made? Typically in nonfiction, the speaker and the author are the same; however, when we approach fiction, we must realize that the speaker and the author are often NOT the same. In fiction the author may choose to tell the story from any number of different points of view. In fact, the method of narration and the character of the speaker may be a crucial piece in understanding the work, particularly in satire. However, in nonfiction, the speaker and the author of the text are most likely going to be the same, which allows us a different avenue for analysis, as we can critique a text alongside what we know about the author.

Tone: What is the tone? This is the attitude a writer takes towards the subject or character: It can be serious, humorous, sarcastic, or even objective. Examine the author’s choice of words, sentence structure, and imagery. Consider providing students with a list of tone words to help them find the exact word. Often in informational text, the tone is objective because the author is simply relaying information and is not trying to sway the audience; however, in literary nonfiction as with fiction, the author may want his/her audience to feel a certain way about the situation, characters, etc.

“Text-Dependent Analysis: Nonfiction.” Licensed under Standard Youtube License https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzMzHrroZGM

“Analyzing Nonfiction.” Licensed under Standard Youtube License https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_k6RXWMHas

“How to Analyze Non-Fiction.” Licensed under CC BY SA 4.0 http://www.rpdp.net/literacyFiles/literacy_101.pdf

The world of creative nonfiction is broad, but learning to analyze the techniques used by literary and personal essayists is a good way to understand how much crafting goes into making a true story, told well. And though the word “essay” may have once been associated with homework assignments and tests, rest assured, there’s much more to the form.

Like fiction, creative nonfiction relies on the careful choices made by a writer. What separates creative nonfiction from fiction, of course, is the writer’s tacit promise to be conveying a story or set of events that is purported to be true. In order to accentuate that truth or present it in its most compelling fashion, creative nonfiction writers use a variety of literary elements and techniques. Everything from the structure of an essay to its shape to its tone influences how a reader makes sense of the content.

ENG134 – Literary Genres Copyright © by The American Women's College and Jessica Egan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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What is creative nonfiction? Despite its slightly enigmatic name, no literary genre has grown quite as quickly as creative nonfiction in recent decades. Literary nonfiction is now well-established as a powerful means of storytelling, and bookstores now reserve large amounts of space for nonfiction, when it often used to occupy a single bookshelf.

Like any literary genre, creative nonfiction has a long history; also like other genres, defining contemporary CNF for the modern writer can be nuanced. If you’re interested in writing true-to-life stories but you’re not sure where to begin, let’s start by dissecting the creative nonfiction genre and what it means to write a modern literary essay.

What Creative Nonfiction Is

Creative nonfiction employs the creative writing techniques of literature, such as poetry and fiction, to retell a true story.

How do we define creative nonfiction? What makes it “creative,” as opposed to just “factual writing”? These are great questions to ask when entering the genre, and they require answers which could become literary essays themselves.

In short, creative nonfiction (CNF) is a form of storytelling that employs the creative writing techniques of literature, such as poetry and fiction, to retell a true story. Creative nonfiction writers don’t just share pithy anecdotes, they use craft and technique to situate the reader into their own personal lives. Fictional elements, such as character development and narrative arcs, are employed to create a cohesive story, but so are poetic elements like conceit and juxtaposition.

The CNF genre is wildly experimental, and contemporary nonfiction writers are pushing the bounds of literature by finding new ways to tell their stories. While a CNF writer might retell a personal narrative, they might also focus their gaze on history, politics, or they might use creative writing elements to write an expository essay. There are very few limits to what creative nonfiction can be, which is what makes defining the genre so difficult—but writing it so exciting.

Different Forms of Creative Nonfiction

From the autobiographies of Mark Twain and Benvenuto Cellini, to the more experimental styles of modern writers like Karl Ove Knausgård, creative nonfiction has a long history and takes a wide variety of forms. Common iterations of the creative nonfiction genre include the following:

Also known as biography or autobiography, the memoir form is probably the most recognizable form of creative nonfiction. Memoirs are collections of memories, either surrounding a single narrative thread or multiple interrelated ideas. The memoir is usually published as a book or extended piece of fiction, and many memoirs take years to write and perfect. Memoirs often take on a similar writing style as the personal essay does, though it must be personable and interesting enough to encourage the reader through the entire book.

Personal Essay

Personal essays are stories about personal experiences told using literary techniques.

When someone hears the word “essay,” they instinctively think about those five paragraph book essays everyone wrote in high school. In creative nonfiction, the personal essay is much more vibrant and dynamic. Personal essays are stories about personal experiences, and while some personal essays can be standalone stories about a single event, many essays braid true stories with extended metaphors and other narratives.

Personal essays are often intimate, emotionally charged spaces. Consider the opening two paragraphs from Beth Ann Fennelly’s personal essay “ I Survived the Blizzard of ’79. ”

We didn’t question. Or complain. It wouldn’t have occurred to us, and it wouldn’t have helped. I was eight. Julie was ten.

We didn’t know yet that this blizzard would earn itself a moniker that would be silk-screened on T-shirts. We would own such a shirt, which extended its tenure in our house as a rag for polishing silver.

The word “essay” comes from the French “essayer,” which means “to try” or “attempt.” The personal essay is more than just an autobiographical narrative—it’s an attempt to tell your own history with literary techniques.

Lyric Essay

The lyric essay contains similar subject matter as the personal essay, but is much more experimental in form.

The lyric essay contains similar subject matter as the personal essay, with one key distinction: lyric essays are much more experimental in form. Poetry and creative nonfiction merge in the lyric essay, challenging the conventional prose format of paragraphs and linear sentences.

The lyric essay stands out for its unique writing style and sentence structure. Consider these lines from “ Life Code ” by J. A. Knight:

The dream goes like this: blue room of water. God light from above. Child’s fist, foot, curve, face, the arc of an eye, the symmetry of circles… and then an opening of this body—which surprised her—a movement so clean and assured and then the push towards the light like a frog or a fish.

What we get is language driven by emotion, choosing an internal logic rather than a universally accepted one.

Lyric essays are amazing spaces to break barriers in language. For example, the lyricist might write a few paragraphs about their story, then examine a key emotion in the form of a villanelle or a ghazal . They might decide to write their entire essay in a string of couplets or a series of sonnets, then interrupt those stanzas with moments of insight or analysis. In the lyric essay, language dictates form. The successful lyricist lets the words arrange themselves in whatever format best tells the story, allowing for experimental new forms of storytelling.

Literary Journalism

Much more ambiguously defined is the idea of literary journalism. The idea is simple: report on real life events using literary conventions and styles. But how do you do this effectively, in a way that the audience pays attention and takes the story seriously?

You can best find examples of literary journalism in more “prestigious” news journals, such as The New Yorker , The Atlantic , Salon , and occasionally The New York Times . Think pieces about real world events, as well as expository journalism, might use braiding and extended metaphors to make readers feel more connected to the story. Other forms of nonfiction, such as the academic essay or more technical writing, might also fall under literary journalism, provided those pieces still use the elements of creative nonfiction.

Consider this recently published article from The Atlantic : The Uncanny Tale of Shimmel Zohar by Lawrence Weschler. It employs a style that’s breezy yet personable—including its opening line.

So I first heard about Shimmel Zohar from Gravity Goldberg—yeah, I know, but she insists it’s her real name (explaining that her father was a physicist)—who is the director of public programs and visitor experience at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, in San Francisco.

How to Write Creative Nonfiction: Common Elements and Techniques

What separates a general news update from a well-written piece of literary journalism? What’s the difference between essay writing in high school and the personal essay? When nonfiction writers put out creative work, they are most successful when they utilize the following elements.

Just like fiction, nonfiction relies on effective narration. Telling the story with an effective plot, writing from a certain point of view, and using the narrative to flesh out the story’s big idea are all key craft elements. How you structure your story can have a huge impact on how the reader perceives the work, as well as the insights you draw from the story itself.

Consider the first lines of the story “ To the Miami University Payroll Lady ” by Frenci Nguyen:

You might not remember me, but I’m the dark-haired, Texas-born, Asian-American graduate student who visited the Payroll Office the other day to complete direct deposit and tax forms.

Because the story is written in second person, with the reader experiencing the story as the payroll lady, the story’s narration feels much more personal and important, forcing the reader to evaluate their own personal biases and beliefs.

Observation

Telling the story involves more than just simple plot elements, it also involves situating the reader in the key details. Setting the scene requires attention to all five senses, and interpersonal dialogue is much more effective when the narrator observes changes in vocal pitch, certain facial expressions, and movements in body language. Essentially, let the reader experience the tiny details – we access each other best through minutiae.

The story “ In Transit ” by Erica Plouffe Lazure is a perfect example of storytelling through observation. Every detail of this flash piece is carefully noted to tell a story without direct action, using observations about group behavior to find hope in a crisis. We get observation when the narrator notes the following:

Here at the St. Thomas airport in mid-March, we feel the urgency of the transition, the awareness of how we position our bodies, where we place our luggage, how we consider for the first time the numbers of people whose belongings are placed on the same steel table, the same conveyor belt, the same glowing radioactive scan, whose IDs are touched by the same gloved hand[.]

What’s especially powerful about this story is that it is written in a single sentence, allowing the reader to be just as overwhelmed by observation and context as the narrator is.

We’ve used this word a lot, but what is braiding? Braiding is a technique most often used in creative nonfiction where the writer intertwines multiple narratives, or “threads.” Not all essays use braiding, but the longer a story is, the more it benefits the writer to intertwine their story with an extended metaphor or another idea to draw insight from.

“ The Crush ” by Zsofia McMullin demonstrates braiding wonderfully. Some paragraphs are written in first person, while others are written in second person.

The following example from “The Crush” demonstrates braiding:

Your hair is still wet when you slip into the booth across from me and throw your wallet and glasses and phone on the table, and I marvel at how everything about you is streamlined, compact, organized. I am always overflowing — flesh and wants and a purse stuffed with snacks and toy soldiers and tissues.

The author threads these narratives together by having both people interact in a diner, yet the reader still perceives a distance between the two threads because of the separation of “I” and “you” pronouns. When these threads meet, briefly, we know they will never meet again.

Speaking of insight, creative nonfiction writers must draw novel conclusions from the stories they write. When the narrator pauses in the story to delve into their emotions, explain complex ideas, or draw strength and meaning from tough situations, they’re finding insight in the essay.

Often, creative writers experience insight as they write it, drawing conclusions they hadn’t yet considered as they tell their story, which makes creative nonfiction much more genuine and raw.

The story “ Me Llamo Theresa ” by Theresa Okokun does a fantastic job of finding insight. The story is about the history of our own names and the generations that stand before them, and as the writer explores her disconnect with her own name, she recognizes a similar disconnect in her mother, as well as the need to connect with her name because of her father.

The narrator offers insight when she remarks:

I began to experience a particular type of identity crisis that so many immigrants and children of immigrants go through — where we are called one name at school or at work, but another name at home, and in our hearts.

How to Write Creative Nonfiction: the 5 R’s

CNF pioneer Lee Gutkind developed a very system called the “5 R’s” of creative nonfiction writing. Together, the 5 R’s form a general framework for any creative writing project. They are:

• Write about r eal life: Creative nonfiction tackles real people, events, and places—things that actually happened or are happening.
• Conduct extensive r esearch: Learn as much as you can about your subject matter, to deepen and enrich your ability to relay the subject matter. (Are you writing about your tenth birthday? What were the newspaper headlines that day?)
• (W) r ite a narrative: Use storytelling elements originally from fiction, such as Freytag’s Pyramid , to structure your CNF piece’s narrative as a story with literary impact rather than just a recounting.
• Include personal r eflection: Share your unique voice and perspective on the narrative you are retelling.
• Learn by r eading: The best way to learn to write creative nonfiction well is to read it being written well. Read as much CNF as you can, and observe closely how the author’s choices impact you as a reader.

You can read more about the 5 R’s in this helpful summary article .

How to Write Creative Nonfiction: Give it a Try!

Whatever form you choose, whatever story you tell, and whatever techniques you write with, the more important aspect of creative nonfiction is this: be honest. That may seem redundant, but often, writers mistakenly create narratives that aren’t true, or they use details and symbols that didn’t exist in the story. Trust us – real life is best read when it’s honest, and readers can tell when details in the story feel fabricated or inflated. Write with honesty, and the right words will follow!

Ready to start writing your creative nonfiction piece? If you need extra guidance or want to write alongside our community, take a look at the upcoming nonfiction classes at Writers.com. Now, go and write the next bestselling memoir!

Sean Glatch

Thank you so much for including these samples from Hippocampus Magazine essays/contributors; it was so wonderful to see these pieces reflected on from the craft perspective! – Donna from Hippocampus

Absolutely, Donna! I’m a longtime fan of Hippocampus and am always astounded by the writing you publish. We’re always happy to showcase stunning work 🙂

I like how it is written about him”…When he’s not writing, which is often, he thinks he should be writing.”

[…] Source: https://www.masterclass.com/articles/a-complete-guide-to-writing-creative-nonfiction#5-creative-nonfiction-writing-promptshttps://writers.com/what-is-creative-nonfiction […]

So impressive

Thank you. I’ve been researching a number of figures from the 1800’s and have come across a large number of ‘biographies’ of figures. These include quoted conversations which I knew to be figments of the author and yet some works are lauded as ‘histories’.

excellent guidelines inspiring me to write CNF thank you

Craft Essays

• Teaching Resources

White and Weird

Tete Draga’s Memorial

Whatcha Gonna Do?

Meditation on a Morning Commute

Complex as the Treaty of Versailles

The Facts of Life, Irish and Unabridged

A Thing of Air

Neurod(i)verse Sounds Like Universe

The Space Between the Shower and the Toilet

Xibalbá :: Ritual

Not the Plan

Mountain Milk

Issue 76 / May 2024

Teaching with Brevity

The brevity blog.

• Weathering A Storm of Ideas: On Shaping a Nonfiction Story
• Stop Drop and Roll: How and When to Share Your Work Online
• Digging into Memoir: The Phases of Psycholiterary Mining
• To the Young Queer Bookseller in Small-Town Tennessee
• Blue Collar, Less-Educated, Rough Around the Edges: The Other Marginalized Writers

© 2024 Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction. All Rights Reserved!

Designed by WPSHOWER

ALAN v41n1 - Tell Me a (Real) Story: The Demand for Literary Nonfiction

The library connection, tell me a (real) story: the demand for literary nonfiction.

One can hardly pick up a professional journal these days without reading about nonfiction, particularly as it relates to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The demand for the integration of nonfiction into classrooms is made abundantly clear:

This call for “literary nonfiction” has led to much confusion and debate. What is literary nonfiction and how does it differ from nonfiction in general? How does literary nonfiction support the goal of CCSS? What is the value of literary nonfiction? What resources are present to assist educators in locating and using quality literary nonfiction with students? These key questions need answers from those who know and understand nonfiction and its applications in the ELA classroom. Much professional sional development is being offered that ignores these key questions. The purpose of this article is to attempt to provide answers. Before teachers move forward with model frameworks and other curricular decisions, it is essential that a clear understanding of literary nonfiction is paramount.

Toward a Cohesive Definition

The term nonfiction is, basically, a definition of a genre by contradiction or negation. A search using the term literary nonfiction yields the following definitions:

• Nonfiction that reads like fiction and includes elements of fiction (plot, characters, conflict, etc.).
• A branch of writing that employs literary techniques usually associated with poetry to report on actual facts.
• Literary nonfiction is also called narrative nonfiction and creative nonfiction. It includes travel writing, essays, autobiography, memoir, biography, sports writing, science writing, and nature writing.
• Literary nonfiction is when an author uses facts and research to create a story with no “made-up parts.”
• Literary nonfiction is dramatic true stories that can explore a variety of subjects.
• Nonfiction is biography, autobiography, memoir, and informational texts.

However, a search of the standard textbooks in the field of literature for children and young adults yields different results. Through the Eyes of a Child ( Norton, 2010 ), Children’s Literature Briefly ( Tunnell, Jacobs, Young, & Bryan, 2011 ) and the classic Literature for Today’s Young Adults ( Nilsen, Blasingame, Nilsen, & Donelson, 2012 ) offer definitions of nonfiction more along the lines of the following:

• Informational books (nonfiction) present knowledge that is accurate and verifiable.
• Nonfiction includes biography, autobiography, and informational texts.
• Nonfiction is based on fact and not imagination.
• Facts and information about nonfiction are uppermost with storytelling used as an expressive technique.

To add to the confusion is the fact that the CCSS documents ( National Governors Association & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010 ) also offer conflicting views of nonfiction. CCSS make a distinction between nonfiction and what they term informational texts , including literary nonfiction, and offer the types of these texts within the K–5 and the 6–12 Reading Standards’ discussion (pp. 5, 10, 35, 31, 37). It is quite difficult to determine the distinctions among these terms since they are used in a rather haphazard and inconsistent fashion. However, the CCSS does delineate some specific kinds of nonfiction for use in the classroom. Included for K–5 are these types of informational texts:

• autobiography
• books about history, science, and the arts
• technical texts
• digital sources (p. 31)

The informational text types for grades 6–12 include:

• personal essays
• opinion pieces
• biographies
• historic/scientific/technical/economic texts
• digital sources (p. 57)

Autobiographies, then, are appropriate for K–5, but the Standards list memoirs for grades 6–12. Technical texts are delineated for younger readers but not for young adults. Vague descriptions (journalism, historic texts) are listed with little or no elaboration. Given that forms, formats, and genres are shifting and evolving constantly, perhaps this is not as surprising as it appears on the surface. Lines are blurring between and among genres; definitions of what is a text are also changing with the advent of more electronic forms and formats. Even the design of nonfiction demonstrates the evolution of the genre.

What is needed is a consensus among educational stakeholders (teachers, librarians, administrators, parents, curriculum writers, etc.) about the term literary nonfiction and what will qualify as such as new curricula demand its use in larger percentages. (As much as 70% of reading across high school grade levels should be literary nonfiction, according to CCSS.) Moreover, the idea that there might exist a “non-literary” or “non-creative” nonfiction is disturbing. The term that seems to make most sense here is narrative nonfiction —nonfiction that tells a story. This term combines the emphasis on fact and information as well as on story. It includes those types of books already being mentioned in much of the CCSS literature: autobiography, biography, informational texts, and memoir (though a discussion about the artificial distinction between autobiography and memoir needs some closer examination as well). It also includes the element of story rather than the more amorphous concept of being literary or creative. Narrative nonfiction is informational and it is literary. Perhaps educators would be well served to establish a terminology that is consistent.

The Value of Nonfiction

There has been a great deal of consternation expressed about the demands for more nonfiction within the CCSS. I understand this concern because I know that the background I brought to my ELA classes in the late 1970s is not very different from the background educators are bringing with them in the 21st century. As an English major, I had countless courses that included the reading and discussion of the classics. Most of those classics were fiction, however. Few, if any, of my college courses included nonfiction. There was an occasional essay, of course, but the focus was squarely on fiction. So, as I was developing my classroom library, booktalking to students, and reading to stay abreast of YA books, I seldom turned to nonfiction. Today, however, I am quite likely to turn to nonfiction for pleasure reading, to include nonfiction among the required reading for my YA class, and to include nonfiction as I present staff development. What changed over the years?

The first change occurred early in my teaching career as I watched kids gravitate toward certain books when we visited the school library. See if this scenario sounds familiar: at one table is a group of students chatting and laughing and pointing as they turn the pages of The Guinness Book of World Records . At another table, kids have taken out paper and pencils and are trying to replicate drawings in one of Lee J. Ames’s Draw 50 books . A couple of girls are checking out the latest biography of a pop idol (in my time, it was New Kids on the Block and Vanilla Ice), while a handful are scanning the shelf of sports biographies looking for one they might have missed. I usually headed right to the fiction stacks, but not all of my students did the same. Obviously, there was interest in books other than fiction.

The real jolt happened when I asked one of my students why he self-defined as a nonreader on a survey I had conducted with the class. I saw him reading during silent reading time. He carried books with him. He checked books out of the library. Surely these were the behaviors of a reader, right? Basically, his response was that the reading he did was not the same type of reading he saw in most of his ELA classes. Reading biographies of basketball stars or reading drawing books or browsing the Guinness Book of World Records ( Glenday, 2009 ) was not deemed reading by his previous teachers, so he began to define himself as a nonreader. I wondered then (and still do) how many students we lose because our working definition of reading is too narrow or limited?

Reading nonfiction fits easily into the different stages in the development of lifelong readers. For unconscious delight, the reading of serial nonfiction allows readers to become “lost in a book,” enjoying that time when the real world slips away as we are reading. For some, this means specializing in a particular series of informational books, such as Greatest Stars of the NBA ( Finkel, 2004 ). This series combines the narrative techniques of biography with the format of graphic novels and manga. Here is informational text that blurs genre boundaries, that combines forms and formats. Serial reading could also mean reading the works of some of the leading authors of biographies and autobiographies, such as Russell Freedman, or reading the narrative nonfiction of Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Steve Sheinkin, or Sue Macy. It might take the form of students seeking out books about historical periods of interest to them, perhaps moving from Freedom’s Children ( Levine, 1993 ) to Claudette Colvin: Twice toward Justice ( Hoose, 2009 ) to Dionne Graham’s audio narration of Martin Luther King Jr. ’s Letters from Birmingham Jail (2013).

If students prefer to read for vicarious experiences, another stage in the development of lifelong readers, there are many subjects and topics to peruse. Instead of simply reading The Diary of Anne Frank ( Frank, Frank, Pressler, & Massotty, 1995 ), we might offer the graphic novel biography authorized by the Anne Frank House ( Jacobson and Colon, 2010 ), which might lead to the rendition of the 911 report by these same graphic novelists. Then one might move on to other works set during the Holocaust, including Hitler Youth ( Bartoletti, 2005 ), Surviving the Angel of Death ( Kor & Buccieri, 2009 ), and I Have Lived a Thousand Years ( Jackson, 1997 ).

Reading autobiographically might lead a student to read books about topics that touch on their own lives. Books about health and beauty—like Lauren Conrad Beauty ( Conrad & Loehnen, 2012 ), Seventeen 500 Health & Fitness Tips: Eat Right, Work Out Smart, and Look Great! ( Foye, 2011 )—or books about college and career like Seventeen’s Guide to Getting into College: Know Yourself, Know Your Schools, & Find Your Perfect Fit! ( Fenderson, 2008 ) or books about careers, culture, compromise, and a myriad of other topics.

Certainly there is nonfiction that also causes readers to grapple with more philosophical issues, another important stage of reader development. Books about racism and prejudice, about war, poverty, population growth, climate change, the environment, pollution, and other topics can assist readers in not only finding the facts and figures for a report, but also informing them about choices they must make as consumers and human beings.

I already had evidence that my own students were reading for aesthetic experiences, the final stage in the development of lifelong readers. There was obviously value in reading nonfiction. The question for me was, how do I fill in my own reading gaps and develop my collection to include more nonfiction? Though this was a question I considered decades ago, it is still a viable and essential question for teachers entering classrooms today under the CCSS demand for increasing exposure to nonfiction.

Resources for Locating Narrative Nonfiction for Students

Of course, given the emphasis on CCSS means educators are scrambling to locate exemplary narrative nonfiction so that they can develop model frameworks, write curriculum to address the Anchor Standards, and supplement their own reading to include more narrative nonfiction. CCSS provides what they call Exemplar Texts—suggestions for texts to be used in building new lessons. They do point out, however disingenuously, that these are not the only texts that could be used. That is a relief since they list only five (!) texts for middle school grades. Churchill, Frederick Douglas, John Adams, and John Steinbeck get nods at this level, along with Ann Petry ’s bio of Harriet Tubman (2007). For high school, the list includes Washington, Lincoln, Paine, FDR, Patrick Henry, and Ronald Reagan, along with a very few authors who are not white: Angelou, Anaya, and Tan. Given this paucity of resources, where can teachers turn for more narrative nonfiction?

My first answer is this: turn to your school librarians. They have much to offer. Their books are free of charge, too. Talk to the school librarian about books for topics and subjects you plan to use within your curriculum. Certified school librarians know the collection and can assist teachers in all subject matters by locating resources, books, and other materials. Here are some other resources that should prove valuable:

• Excellence in Nonfiction Award from the Young Adult Library Services of the American Library Association (YALSA). Presented in 2010 for the first time, this award recognizes distinction in nonfiction for YA readers. Winners may be located here: http://www.ala.org/yalsa/ booklistsawards/bookawards/ nonfiction/previous .
• The Sibert Award for Nonfiction from the Association of Library Services to Children (ALSC). First presented in 2001, this award is for distinction in nonfiction for children. However, since the age range for these books extends to age 14, there are plenty of good YA nonfiction titles from which to select. The list of winners, past and present, may be found here: http:// www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/ bookmedia/sibertmedal/sibert past/sibertmedalpast .
• One of the oldest awards for nonfiction, the Orbis Pictus Award from the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) has been awarded since
• The award includes one winning title, a handful of honor books, and a list of recommended titles as well. Current winners and links to winning titles from the past are located here: http://www.ncte.org/awards/ orbispictus .
• Children’s Book Council (CBC). Since 1972, the CBC and content area professional organizations have produced two lists: Notable Books in the Social Studies and Notable Outstanding Science Trade Books. You can link to past lists here for social studies: http://www.socialstudies.org/ notable. Links for science are here: http://www.cbcbooks .org/readinglists. php?page=outstandingscience .
• Reviewing journals such as VOYA, SLJ, Booklist, and The Horn Book review nonfiction regularly. Lists of those books receiving starred reviews are generally a good place to begin.

Become a nonfiction detective. If you are not already part of a PLN, begin to build one using Twitter, Tumblr, and blogs. See what books are getting the “buzz.” Right now, my favorite new piece of nonfiction is called Bad for You ( Pyle, 2013 ), a book that seamlessly blends nonfiction in the graphic novel format. Chapters discuss things that others believe are bad for teens, including play, comics, and video games. Members of my PLN are suggesting titles such as the Scientists in the Field series and the Discover More series. Individual titles include Temple Grandin ( Montgomery, 2012 ), Invincible Microbe ( Murphy & Blank, 2012 ), and Impossible Rescue ( Sandler, 2012 ). Look inside your classroom as well.

Lurk and watch. See what narrative nonfiction appeals to readers in your classroom. Are they reading memoirs? Why? Or why not? Do certain topics and subjects appeal across age and gender and other factors? What are they? If CCSS remain as the dictate for many states, we need to assess where our readers are in terms of reading nonfiction and plan how we will introduce them to other types of narrative nonfiction in a way that motivates them to read for more than just a test.

Finally, a Challenge for Us All

The emphasis on nonfiction or reading of informational texts should be one I welcome. But I do have some concerns. David Coleman, one of the key “architects” for the new Standards, points to the need for nonfiction so that students will be more prepared for college and career; thus the push for nonfiction within CCSS. He insists that readers gain “world knowledge” through nonfiction, a knowledge that is absent from fiction. The CCSS call for increasing emphasis on informational texts, about a 70–30 ratio in high school. This de-valuing and de-emphasis on fiction might also result in the loss of readers.

If we are not to be restricted to the rather confining nature of the CCSS Exemplar Texts, we need to challenge ourselves to read more and to read more widely. I generally begin with the award winners, if they are books I have not already read. Here are five of the most recent award recipients for you to browse (and even better, read). Bomb: The Race to Build–and Steal–the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin (2012) , the winner of the Excellence in Nonfiction Award from YALSA, the Sibert Award from ALSC, and a Newbery Honor winner, is a powerful story that has, at its heart, spies and intrigue and political maneuverings. Given all the accolades, this might just be the perfect place to begin reading and discovering the wonderful world of narrative nonfiction available for today’s educators and students. We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children’s March (2012) by Cynthia Levinson was also recognized with multiple awards. No Crystal Stair: A Documentary Novel of the Life and Work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem Bookseller (2012) by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson combines fact and story in a documentary novel format. Titanic: Voices from the Disaster (2012), written by Deborah Hopkinson , and Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95 (2012), written by Phillip Hoose , received both the Sibert and the Excellence in Nonfiction Award this year. Challenge yourself and your colleagues to “mind the gap” and read more narrative nonfiction to share with your classes.

Teri S. Lesesne is a professor in the department of Library Science at Sam Houston State University in Texas. Former president of ALAN, Teri now serves as its Executive Director. She can be followed on Twitter (@ProfessorNana).

National Governors Association & Council of Chief State School Officers. (2010). Common Core State Standards for English language arts and literacy in history/ social studies, science, and technical subjects. Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org .

Nilsen, A. P., Blasingame, J., Nilsen, D., & Donelson, K. L. (2012). Literature for today’s young adults . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Norton, D. E. (2010). Through the eyes of a child . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Tunnell, M. O., Jacobs, J. S., Young, T. A., & Bryan, G. (2011). Children’s literature briefly (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Trade Book References

Ames, L. J. (1977). Draw 50 vehicles: Selections from Draw 50 boats, ships, trucks, and trains, and Draw 50 airplanes, aircraft, and spacecraft. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

Bartoletti, S. C. (2005). Hitler Youth: Growing up in Hitler’s shadow . New York, NY: Scholastic Nonfiction.

Conrad, L., & Loehnen, E. (2012). Lauren Conrad beauty . New York, NY: Harper.

Fenderson, J. J. (2008). Seventeen’s guide to getting into college . New York, NY: Hearst Books.

Finkel, J. (2004). Greatest stars of the NBA: Shaquille O’Neal . Hamburg, Germany: Tokyopop.

Foye, M. (2011). Seventeen 500 Health & Fitness Tips: Eat Right, Work Out Smart, and Look Great! New York, NY: Hearst Books.

Frank, A., Frank, O., Pressler, M., & Massotty, S. (1995). The diary of a young girl: The definitive edition . New York, NY: Doubleday.

Glenday, C. (2009). Guinness world records 2010 . London, England: Guinness World Records.

Hoose, P. M. (2009). Claudette Colvin: Twice toward justice . New York, NY: Melanie Kroupa Books/Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

Hoose, P. M. (2012). Moonbird: A year on the wind with the great survivor B95 . New York, NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

Hopkinson, D. (2012). Titanic: Voices from the disaster . New York, NY: Scholastic Press.

Jackson, L. B. (1997). I have lived a thousand years: Growing up in the Holocaust . New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.

Jacobson, S., & Colon, E. (2010). Anne Frank: The Anne Frank authorized graphic biography. New York, NY: Hill and Wang.

King, M. L. (2013). Letter from Birmingham jail [audio recording] (D. Graham, narrator). Solon, OH: Findaway World.

Kor, E. M., & Buccieri, L. (2009). Surviving the angel of death: The story of a Mengele twin in Auschwitz . Terre Haute, IN: Tanglewood.

Levine, E. (1993). Freedom’s children: Young civil rights activists tell their own stories . New York, NY: Putnam.

Levinson, C. (2012). We’ve got a job: The 1963 Birmingham children’s march . Atlanta, GA: Peachtree Publishers.

Montgomery, S. (2012). Temple Grandin: How the girl who loved cows embraced autism and changed the world . New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin.

Murphy, J., & Blank, A. (2012). Invincible microbe: Tuberculosis and the neverending search for a cure . Boston, MA: Clarion Books.

Nelson, V. M. (2012). No crystal stair: A documentary novel of the life and work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem bookseller (R. G. Christie, Illus.). Minneapolis, MN: Carolrhoda Lab.

Petry, A. (2007). Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the underground railroad . New York, NY: Amistad.

Pyle, K. (2013). Bad for you . New York, NY: Henry Holt.

Sandler, M. W. (2012). The impossible rescue: The true story of an amazing Arctic adventure . Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.

Sheinkin, S. (2012). Bomb: The race to build and steal the world’s most dangerous weapon . New York, NY: Roaring Brook Press.

2014 Call for CEL Award for Exemplary Leadership

Please nominate an exceptional leader who has had an impact on the profession through one or more of the following: 1) work that has focused on exceptional teaching and/or leadership practices (e.g., building an effective department, grade level, or building team; developing curricula or processes for practicing English language arts educators; or mentoring); 2) contributions to the profession through involvement at both the local and national levels; 3) publications that have had a major impact. This award is given annually to an NCTE member who is an outstanding English language arts educator and leader. Your award nominee submission must include a nomination letter, the nominee’s curriculum vita, and no more than three additional letters of support from various colleagues. Send by February 1, 2014 , to: Rebecca Sipe, 8140 Huron River Drive, Dexter, MI 48130. Or email submission to [email protected] (Subject: CEL Exemplary Leader).

Java Games: Flashcards, matching, concentration, and word search. Study these nonfiction literary terms to be prepared for your assignments and your tests. For the flash cards, click "Remove Card" if you get the definition right or click "Try Again Later" if you get it wrong. You can also click "Try other side of Card." A B nonfiction writing that deals with real--not imagined--events and people biography the story of a person's life as written by another person autobiography the story of a person's life as written by that person memoir a type of autobiography that focuses on one incident or one period in a person's life essay a short nonfictional work that focuses on one thesis about a particular subject speech a public address that was once given orally informational text nonfiction writing with the primary purpose of explaining or conveying information purpose aim or goal expository mode writing that informs narrative mode writing that uses a story format to express ideas descriptive mode writing that portrays the physical features of a person, object, or place or the emotional impact of an event persuasive mode writing that attempts to convince people to accept a position or respond in some way source evidence of an event, idea, or a development primary source direct evidence or proof coming from those involved expository essay focuses on informing readers about a subject persuasive essay focuses on convincing readers to accept an opinion or take an action personal essay focuses on a topic related to the life or interests of the writer chronological order arrangement of details in the order in which they occured order of importance arrangement of details based on their relevance comparison and contrast order arrangement of details by showing similarities and differences cause and effect order arrangement of details showing actions and the results of those actions impromptu speech speaking without prior knowledge of the topic extemporaneous speech speaking from a previously prepared script rhetorical devices techniques used by speakers and writers to gain influence with their audiences parallelism repetition of grammatical forms in several sentences repetition intentional reuse of words, sounds, phrases, or sentences rhetorical question a question whose answer is so obvious it need not be expressed ethos appealing to right and wrong pathos appealing to emotions logos appealing to logical reasoning article a short informational text about a particular topic, issue, event, or series of events fact a statement that can be proven as true or false opinion a statement of preference or desire bias a personal judgement about something propaganda types of faulty reasoning that sometimes are used to intentionally mislead audiences glittering generality a statement used to make something seem more appealing than it actually is spin a technique of slanting and manipulating facts so that they are misleading stereotype an overgeneralization about a group of people that is based on a lack of knowledge circular reasoning supporting an opinion by restating the opinion with other words loaded words a technique using words sure to bring about strong positive or negative feelings bandwagon appeal a technique intending to persuade by convincing someone to join the crowd and be like everyone else This activity was created by a Quia Web subscriber. Craft and Criticism Fiction and Poetry News and Culture Lit Hub Radio Reading Lists Literary Criticism Craft and Advice In Conversation On Translation Short Story From the Novel Bookstores and Libraries Film and TV Art and Photography Freeman’s The Virtual Book Channel Behind the Mic Beyond the Page The Cosmic Library The Critic and Her Publics Emergence Magazine Fiction/Non/Fiction First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing The History of Literature I’m a Writer But Lit Century Tor Presents: Voyage Into Genre Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast Write-minded The Best of the Decade Best Reviewed Books BookMarks Daily Giveaway The Daily Thrill CrimeReads Daily Giveaway The Truth About Fiction vs. Nonfiction Aminatta forna, from reporter to novelist, and everything in between. Some years ago I was invited to judge a literature prize. The prize was awarded on the basis of a writer’s body of work, but the prize organizers had limited the scope to works of fiction. Works of non-fiction by the same writer were not included. This made no sense to me and I said so. As a novelist and essayist I see the two forms as conjoined twins, sharing themes and concerns, which all come out of the same brain, but flow into two separate entities. The same is true of every writer I can think of who writes both fiction and non-fiction. Marilynne Robinson’s novels Gilead , Home and Housekeeping and her powerful essays examine her reflections on Christanity and morality. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera, Chronicle of a Death Foretold and News of a Kidnapping tell of the history and making of modern Colombia. Michael Ondaatje says he wrote first his memoir Running in the Family about growing up in Sri Lanka, but felt the need to turn to fiction to write about the Sri Lankan civil war. Aleksandar Hemon’s Nowhere Man and his collection of essays The Book of My Lives excavate themes of loss and displacement from his hometown of Sarajevo. Twelve years ago I was being interviewed on the radio about my debut novel Ancestor Stones , the first thing I had published following a memoir which had garnered a fair bit of attention. The novel told the stories of four women, each sisters growing up in a different era of a country’s history. The interviewer asked me a question that confounded me. Why I hadn’t written it as a work of nonfiction, she wanted to know. I replied that it would have been difficult, the people didn’t exist and the events I described in their lives hadn’t happened. Later I spent a little time pondering that question. Did the interviewer, who had spoken to hundreds of writers in her career as a critic and radio host, really have so little understanding of the process? I wondered if she thought, as I discovered a good many people lazily assumed, that the family described in the story was nothing more than a lightly disguised version of my own. The historical background to the stories was true, sure, but the stories themselves, the people, I had made all that up. A while later I was guest lecturer at a British university giving a talk and reading from my memoir to a group of students of creative nonfiction. My publishers had described the book as a “story of a father, a family, a country and a continent.” I had grown up in Sierra Leone, the daughter of a political activist and dissident. The story I told was of my search to uncover events surrounding my father’s murder in the 1970s when I was eleven years old. Back then the kind of political upheaval that was played out in Sierra Leone was being played out all over the continent as nascent democracies of newly independent nations were hijacked by authoritarian regimes. At the end of the session a middle-aged woman raised her hand: “Why,” she asked “had I gone to all the bother of writing a work of nonfiction when I could just as easily have written a novel.” To write the truest account I could mattered, I answered, a little testily, because these things actually happened. It mattered to my family, to the participants, the witnesses, and the people of the country. This was a book about how oppression unchecked causes a country to implode 25 years later, part of an unveiling of the things that had happened and never been spoken about. “Each time a writer begins a book they make a contract with all the people who buy their book.” I began my working career as a journalist, because having grown up in a country where the state controlled the newspapers and the narrative and fed misinformation to the public, truth telling was important to me. In this era of “fake news” my background as a journalist has turned out to be a useful one. I was trained to fact check and to question the reliability of each and every source, and hence these days I’m astonished to discover the credulity of the public, including some friends and Facebook acquaintances, who take apparently at face value stories which would not withstand a few moments scrutiny. “Fake news” has been around a long time from Joseph Goebbels to the British tabloids and the American entertainment magazines. What has changed thanks to social media is the mode and speed of delivery, also the messenger, from basement trolls, to Russian bots all the way to the leader of a Western superpower, who according to various sources lies publicly roughly five or six times a day, whilst at the same time condemning the output of the mainstream media as fake. A decade after I joined the BBC however, I was done. I was never content as a reporter for a large organization. The problem, I gradually came to realize, was that I was obliged to speak with a voice not my own but another voice belonging to another kind of person. It was the voice of the BBC, a reflection of the broadcaster’s viewers and listeners, people who had on the whole lived lives quite unlike my own, who took for granted a shared knowledge, shared levels of experience, of familiarity and unfamiliarity with their world and the world beyond. They were the great middle class of middle England, and I was not one of them. The voice stuck in my craw. Everyone writes for their own reasons and if there is one thing that moves me to set out my thoughts on paper it is this: that ever since the years of my childhood I have never seen the world the way I am constantly being told it is and I could only do so in my own voice. In the time I have been writing there have been huge shifts in the sphere of the realm we now call creative nonfiction. Where once most first person nonfiction was generally confined to travel writing, narrative journalism and essays, the late 20th century has seen a huge explosion in personal memoir, from Tobias Wolff and Mary Karr’s tales of family dysfunction to Jung Chang’s “memoir as narrative history,” Wild Swans, set against the historical back-sweep of the Chinese cultural revolution. In nature writing, Annie Dillard’s self-described “theodyssey,” which sees creation in tiny Tinker’s Creek, Helen Macdonald’s exploration of grief and falconry, the expanses of Barry Lopez Arctic Dreams . There are hybrids of every kind: William Fiennes’s account of his brother’s epilepsy combined with the history of the science of the brain in The Music Room , the magic and myth of Maxine Hong Kingston’s Woman Warrior , and again Michael Ondaatje’s Running in the Family which moves beyond the very idea of form. The writer of creative nonfiction and the writer of fiction have much in common. Both employ the techniques of narrative, plot, pace, mood and tone, considerations of tense and person, the depiction of character, the nuance of dialogue. Where the difference lies is that the primary source of the fiction writer is first and foremost their imagination, followed by their powers of observation and maybe a certain amount of research. The primary resource of the writer of creative nonfiction is lived experience, above and beyond all, memory, add to that observation and research. Another difference lies in what I call the contract with the reader. Each time a writer begins a book they make a contract with all the people who buy their book. If the book is a work of fiction the contract is pretty vague, essentially saying: “Commit your time and patience to me and I will tell you a story.” There may be a sub-clause about the effort to entertain or to thrill, or some such. In my contract for each of my novels I have promised to try to show my readers the world in a way they have not seen before, or perhaps show it to them in a way they had not considered before. A contract for a work of nonfiction is a more precise affair. The writer says, I am telling you, and to the best of my ability, what I believe to be true. This is a contract not to be broken lightly. “Where once most first person nonfiction was generally confined to travel writing, narrative journalism and essays, the late 20th century has seen a huge explosion in personal memoir.” There are those writers of what is published under the heading nonfiction who freely confess to inventing some of their material. Clearly they have a different kind of contract with the reader from mine, or perhaps no contract at all. Whenever I am on stage with memoirists who do this, they start by explaining how the story was improved by those additions and that none of it mattered much anyway. In the words of the British writer Geoff Dyer: “The contrivances in my nonfiction are so factually trivial that their inclusion takes no skin off even the most inquisitorial nose.” And then there are writers such as W.G. Sebald and more recently Karl Ove Knausgaard who deliberately place their work in the twilight zone between fact and fiction. I won’t argue these writers case for them here, they know what they are doing. For the memoirist who purports to be telling only the truth and then is caught lying a special kind of fury is reserved. In 2003, at a book festival in Auckland I met a woman named Norma Khouri who had written a memoir called Forbidden Love which told the story of the honor killing of her childhood best friend in their native Jordan at the hand of the friend’s own brother. The girl’s supposed crime was to have fallen in love with a Christian. The book sold half a million copies and at the time we met Khouri had founded and was raising money for an organization to save Jordanian women in danger of being killed for “honor.” We appeared on the same panel, afterwards we drank at the bar. Norma was fun, she seemed to have survived her ordeal well, too well some said later, but I know many people who have faced extreme situations and they are often perfectly cheerful. I didn’t think too much about her American accent either, she told me, or perhaps I assumed, that she had been to the International School in Jordan. All in all I spent maybe two hours in her company. I flew back to the UK and a month or two later I received an email from the panel chair David Leser, a well known Australian journalist and feature writer. He wrote that he had stayed up with Khouri late into the night after we had left the bar, had been deeply moved by her fragility and courage, even, he admitted later in an article, fallen a little in love with her. “I began my working career as a journalist, because having grown up in a country where the state controlled the newspapers and the narrative and fed misinformation to the public, truth telling was important to me.” Khouri was a fraud. She had left Jordan for Chicago at the age of three and had not set foot in her homeland since. The whole story had been a hoax. No best friend, no Christian lover, no honor killing. The rage at Khouri lasted for months. A decade later a filmmaker made a documentary about her: Forbidden Lie$, in which Khouri continues to try to vindicate herself, despite the mountain of seemingly irrefutable evidence including accusations of financial misconduct and her inability to provide evidence to prove the existence of her dead friend and her friend’s family. To Leser she admitted she had lied but, she said, for the right reasons. Those who met her including Leser (and me) never could decide whether she was a trickster, a fantasist or even a woman with some hidden trauma of her own. Everyone, even Norma Khouri, has their own reasons to write, their own justifications for the choices they make, their contract with their readers, their contract with themselves. I ask my students of both fiction and nonfiction, but most of all those who wish to write personal memoirs (perhaps because of all the forms of writing it is the one most often confused with therapy): Why do people need to hear this story? Not, Why do you want to write this story? i.e Not what’s in it for you. What’s in it for them? When I come to a begin a book it is usually with a question in mind, something I have been thinking about and I want to ask the reader to think about too. What turns the book into a novel is the arrival of a character. Elias Cole, the ambitious, morally equivocating coward in The Memory of Love came to me through a chance remark by a friend about her father, a successful academic who had somehow survived a villainous regime where his colleagues had not. I hired a man to paint my house who I discovered (on the last day) was a thrice imprisoned violent offender. Out of that encounter came Duro, the handyman Laura unthinkingly allows into her holiday home in The Hired Man . My nonfiction begins with a question too. The difference, if I can pinpoint it, is that with nonfiction when I start to write I believe I may have come up with an answer, an answer of sorts at least. Don DeLillo once quipped that a fiction writer starts with meaning and manufactures events to represent it; the writer of creative nonfiction starts with events, then derives meaning from them. Gillian Slovo, both a novelist and memoirist, once told me that with nonfiction you always know what your story is, with fiction that isn’t necessarily the case. I think there is truth in both statements. It’s easy to lose sight of your story, meaning the deeper truth you are reaching for in fiction, the more it can be a slippery process. When it comes to nonfiction I discard or store numbers of stories, sometimes because I can’t think of the right way to tell them, but more often because although I know the story in narrative terms, I have not yet arrived at its meaning. The best stories can arrive quite by chance, replete with meaning and maybe even with a great character through whom to tell them. Some years ago a stray dog I had adopted in Sierra Leone and given to a friend was hit by a car. The story of the effort to save her life, which involved many ordinary people in a country still on its knees after ten years of civil war, introduced me to Dr. Gudush Jalloh who was then the only working vet in the country (the others having all fled or been killed). Here was a man who devoted himself to the lives of the city’s street dogs, who, in the face of an announced cull, had stood up to represent the dogs before the City Council, who had driven around at night rousing the local people into action to save the lives of dogs. I wrote an essay for Granta , “The Last Vet,” about Gudush Jalloh, for to me everything about him represented something to which I had been giving a great deal of recent thought, the gap between Western and West African modes of thought. By writing about him I could reveal something to West Africans about their own culture and reverse the gaze on Western culture. “The conversation,” I later wrote after spending two weeks in his company, will range over days: “African pragmatism and reality, Western sentiment, the schism between the values of the two and the West’s own conflicted treatment of animals. Of Jalloh’s lot in trying to embrace, negotiate and reconcile so many ways of thinking.” Sometimes meaning comes later. I lived in Tehran when I was 14. The year was 1979, my mother was married to a diplomat who headed the UN’s development projects in the country. I found myself a teenage witness to one the great revolutions of all time, from its heady flowering in the hands of writers and artists, to the crushing of new found freedoms by the mullahs a year later. The events, their sequence and consequence, made no real sense to me at the time. In the essay 1979 I wrote: “I was, at that time, an ardent revolutionary. I had a poster of Che Guevara on my wall and a sweatshirt bearing his image. I read his speeches and admitted to no one that I found them impenetrable. I was ardent—all I lacked was a revolution. And now here was a revolution [between the progressive authoritarian Shah and the defiant yet regressive Khomeini] and I had no idea whose side I was on.” Decades later, watching the hopes and disappointment of the Arab Spring those months in Iran came back to me, this time with a fresh understanding, of the ways, the stepping stones, by which freedoms can also be hijacked and subverted. Of never believing it can be that easy. At other times a thought process, which has been going on for months or even years, might begin to arrange itself into a sort of pattern. Like a pebble in my pocket I carry the notion around, collecting other pebbles which look similar, until I have a pocketful. I’ll spread them out on the table, these notes and observations, looking for the points of connection. Then there comes the moment, hopefully, when I see it. In that way fiction and nonfiction are not so different, that part of the process is the same. With fiction, though, I will begin to search for a narrative with which to veil those ideas. Here’s Zadie Smith: “Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand—but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied.” And therein lies the difference. In nonfiction the writer seeks to remove the veils, to strip away and to reveal what is really there. On my noticeboard in my office in London I had pinned the lines: “Nonfiction reveals the lies, but only metaphor can reveal the truth.” I don’t know who said it, I’m afraid. I think it was Nadine Gordimer, but I’ve quoted it so many times that on the internet it is now ascribed to me. The quotation seems to me to be intended to elevate fiction as the higher form, and I agree that fiction allows me to reach for another less literal kind of truth. But there is something about stripping away the myths that veil the lies that is vitally satisfying. There , says the writer of nonfiction, I said it! I said it! And so is thus spared the lifelong sadness of never being satisfied. After a long spell writing fiction I find I inevitably seek recourse in the clarity, the exactitude of nonfiction, a flight from the coyness of fiction. Then comes a time when I have said what needs to be said, facts become constraining and it’s time to revel in the boundless freedoms of the imagination once more. A novel begins with the thought: What if? A work of creative nonfiction begins with words: What is. The writer says to the reader: Wake up, smell the coffee and look at what is there. The preceding is from the new  Freeman’s  channel at Literary Hub, which will feature excerpts from the print editions of  Freeman’s , along with supplementary writing from contributors past, present and future. The latest issue of  Freeman’s , a special edition featuring 29 of the best emerging writers from around the world, is available now. Aminatta Forna Previous article, next article. RSS - Posts Literary Hub Created by Grove Atlantic and Electric Literature Sign Up For Our Newsletters How to Pitch Lit Hub Advertisers: Contact Us Privacy Policy Support Lit Hub - Become A Member Become a Lit Hub Supporting Member : Because Books Matter For the past decade, Literary Hub has brought you the best of the book world for free—no paywall. But our future relies on you. In return for a donation, you’ll get an ad-free reading experience , exclusive editors’ picks, book giveaways, and our coveted Joan Didion Lit Hub tote bag . Most importantly, you’ll keep independent book coverage alive and thriving on the internet. Become a member for as low as $5/month 472 IMAGES Creative writing in non-fiction Free Essay Example Example of literary text in creative non-fiction and its definition and Literacy Nonfiction Essay PPT Nonfiction Essay COMMENTS An Introduction to the Best Literary Nonfiction Literary nonfiction, also called creative nonfiction, is an umbrella term that includes all writing that is based in reality and has been written with specific attention to the craft of writing, using literary techniques to talk about subjects that are not made up. Potentially any kind of nonfiction can be literary nonfiction, except, perhaps ... Literary Nonfiction A nonfiction essay is a short text dealing with a single topic. A classic essay format includes: An introductory paragraph, ending in a statement of thesis (that is, the purpose of the essay ... An Introduction to Literary Nonfiction Using Literary Techniques Usually Found in Fiction on Real-Life Events. Like literary journalism, literary nonfiction is a type of prose that employs the literary techniques usually associated with fiction or poetry to report on persons, places, and events in the real world without altering facts. interviews, and familiar and personal essays. Literary Nonfiction Literary nonfiction is also known as creative nonfiction. It defies the traditional boundaries of factual writing. It delves into true stories, historical events, and personal experiences. It weaves them with the narrative techniques and stylistic flourishes more commonly associated with fiction. Think vivid descriptions, evocative language ... What Is Literary Nonfiction? Types & Unique Features What is literary nonfiction? Learn about literary nonfiction, also known as creative nonfiction or narrative nonfiction, and the unique features it has. 8.5-Analyzing Nonfiction through Literary Elements 8.5-Analyzing Nonfiction through Literary Elements Matt McKinney. As mentioned earlier in the chapter, concepts like structure, point of view, tone, themes, and symbolism are more commonly associated with fiction than nonfiction. However, nonfictional literature also incorporates them for similar reasons. These reasons often include: The New Outliers: How Creative Nonfiction Became a ... December 13, 2021. Many of my students, and even some younger colleagues, think—assume—that creative nonfiction is just part of the literary ecosystem; it's always been around, like fiction or poetry. In many ways, of course, they are right: the kind of writing that is now considered to be under the creative nonfiction umbrella has a long ... The 20 Best Works of Nonfiction of the Decade ‹ Literary Hub The Emperor of All Maladies won the 2011 Pulitzer in General Nonfiction (the jury called it "An elegant inquiry, at once clinical and personal, into the long history of an insidious disease that, despite treatment breakthroughs, still bedevils medical science."), the Guardian first book award, and the inaugural PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary ... Nonfictional prose nonfictional prose, any literary work that is based mainly on fact, even though it may contain fictional elements. Examples are the essay and biography. Defining nonfictional prose literature is an immensely challenging task. This type of literature differs from bald statements of fact, such as those recorded in an old chronicle or inserted in ... Non-Fiction as Literary Form: Definition and Examples Learn the definition of nonfiction and explore examples of its literary forms, including biographies, autobiographies, memoirs, essays, and journalism. Updated: 03/29/2024 Create an account Nonfiction Whether it takes the form of literary journalism, essay, memoir, or environmental writing, creative nonfiction is a powerful genre that allows writers to break free from the constraints commonly associated with nonfiction prose and reach for the breadth of thought and feeling usually accomplished only in fiction: the narration of a vivid story ... Analyzing Nonfiction The world of creative nonfiction is broad, but learning to analyze the techniques used by literary and personal essayists is a good way to understand how much crafting goes into making a true story, told well. And though the word "essay" may have once been associated with homework assignments and tests, rest assured, there's much more to ... Nonfiction Definition, Types & Examples Literary Nonfiction. Literary nonfiction, or creative nonfiction, is a sub-genre of nonfiction where the author uses storytelling to inform, educate, and entertain the reader. Although, like with ... Creative Nonfiction: What It Is and How to Write It Literary nonfiction is now well-established as a powerful means of storytelling, and bookstores now reserve large amounts of space for nonfiction, when it often used to occupy a single bookshelf. Like any literary genre, creative nonfiction has a long history; also like other genres, defining contemporary CNF for the modern writer can be nuanced. The Book of Literary Terms: The Genres of Fiction, Drama, Nonfiction The best-selling author of The Book of Forms -- now in a third edition -- has created the same codification and systematization for all nonfiction forms of writing, and for all forms of fiction other than poetry. In The Book of Literary Terms, Lewis Turco provides a comprehensive guide to, and definitions of all significant terms, forms, and styles in all genres of literature except poetry. Creative nonfiction Creative nonfiction (also known as literary nonfiction, narrative nonfiction, literary journalism or verfabula [1]) is a genre of writing that uses literary styles and techniques to create factually accurate narratives.Creative nonfiction contrasts with other non-fiction, such as academic or technical writing or journalism, which are also rooted in accurate fact though not written to entertain ... The Best Reviewed Nonfiction of 2022 ‹ Literary Hub Featuring Bob Dylan, Elena Ferrante, Kate Beaton, Jhumpa Lahiri, Kate Beaton, and More. By Book Marks. December 8, 2022. Article continues after advertisement. Remove Ads. We've come to the end of another bountiful literary year, and for all of us review rabbits here at Book Marks, that can mean only one thing: basic math, and lots of it. Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction To prose. The endless line. Adjusting to nonfiction. To motherhood & writing mothering so my "I" has nothing to hide behind. The lyric stripped of so much music & light. ... Brevity's Spring 2024 issue features stunning new essays from Aram Mrjoian, Diane Zinna, Jim Daniels, Joey Franklin, Jiadai Lin, Heather Cook Mihalik, Felicia Zamora ... A Complete Guide to Writing Creative Nonfiction Written by MasterClass. Last updated: Sep 29, 2021 • 5 min read. Creative nonfiction uses various literary techniques to tell true stories. Writing creative nonfiction requires special attention to perspective and accuracy. ALAN v41n1 CCSS make a distinction between nonfiction and what they term informational texts , including literary nonfiction, and offer the types of these texts within the K-5 and the 6-12 Reading Standards' discussion (pp. 5, 10, 35, 31, 37). It is quite difficult to determine the distinctions among these terms since they are used in a rather ... The Best Reviewed Nonfiction of 2021 ‹ Literary Hub 3. Tom Stoppard: A Life by Hermione Lee. "Lee…builds an ever richer, circular understanding of his abiding themes and concerns, of his personal and artistic life, and of his many other passionate engagements …. Lee's biography is unusual in that it was commissioned, and published while its subject is still alive. Quia nonfiction. writing that deals with real--not imagined--events and people. biography. the story of a person's life as written by another person. autobiography. the story of a person's life as written by that person. memoir. a type of autobiography that focuses on one incident or one period in a person's life. essay. The Truth About Fiction vs. Nonfiction ‹ Literary Hub The writer of creative nonfiction and the writer of fiction have much in common. Both employ the techniques of narrative, plot, pace, mood and tone, considerations of tense and person, the depiction of character, the nuance of dialogue. Where the difference lies is that the primary source of the fiction writer is first and foremost their ... essay homework paper phd project resume review speech study thesis