Table of Contents
Preface I. ABOUT CREATIVE NONFICTION
1. True Stories, Innovative Forms
Basic Forms of Creative Nonfiction
The Art of Narrative
The Narrative Craft
The Truth of the Matter
Curiosity and Passion: The Indispensable Tools
2. What Makes Nonfiction Creative?
A Way of Seeing
More than “Just the Facts”
Creative Nonfiction vs. Standard Journalism: An Illustration
Honesty, Memory, and the Stranger in the Room
Writing Prompts: What Is Creative Nonfiction?
II. BUILDING BLOCKS OF CREATIVE NONFICTION
3. Building Blocks of Creative Nonfiction: Detail and Description
Detail and Description
Specific and Particular
“Injection,” Jane Armstrong
Revising for Detail and Description
Writing Prompts: Detail and Description
4. Building Blocks of Creative Nonfiction: Characterization and Scene
Characterization through Dialogue
“A Dramatic Dogalog,” Art Homer
Characterization through Action
“Drink It,” Patricia Ann McNair
Scene: Letting the Facts Speak for Themselves
Revising for Scene
Writing Prompts: Characterization through Dialogue, Characterization through Action
5. Building Blocks of Creative Nonfiction: Distinctive Voice and Intimate Point-of-View
Distinctive Voice
“Pop Art,” Brian Doyle
Intimate Point-of-View
“Sunday,” Henry Louis Gates
Revising for Voice and Point-of-View
Writing Prompts: Distinctive Voice and Intimate Point-of-View
6. Building Blocks of Creative Nonfiction: Discovery
What You “Make of It”
“Solstice,” Richard Terrill
“Tino and Papi,” Norma Elia Cantu
Discovery and Details
Revising for Discovery
Writing Prompts: Discovery
III. FROM BUILDING BLOCKS TO COMPLETE ESSAY
7. The Memoir Essay
Examining the Memoir Essay
“Genesis,” Bret Lott
“Thumb-Sucking Girl,” Sonja Livingston
Writing Your Own Memoir Essay
But “Who Cares?”
Writing Prompts for Memoir
8. The Literary Journalism Essay
Examining the Literary Journalism Essay
“Hope,” Brian Doyle
Excerpt from“Where Worlds Collide,” Pico Iyer
Writing Your Own Literary Journalism Essay
Writing Prompts for Literary Journalism
9. The Personal Essay
Examining the Personal Essay
“The Meadow,” James Galvin
“In Bed,” Joan Didion
Writing Your Own Personal Essay
Writing Prompts for the Personal Essay
10. Revision and Narrative Structure
On Serious Revision
Revision and Narrative Structure
Braiding
Collage
Frame
Other Strategies
Writing Prompts for Narrative Structure
IV. The Anthology
The Brief Essay
Laurie Drummond, “Alive”
Lori Jakiela, “You’ll Love the Way We Fly
Lee Martin, “Dumber Than”
Deborah Tall, “The Stories Tell the Land”
The Conventional Length Essay
James Baldwin, “Notes of a Native Son”
Jo Ann Beard, “Out There”
Judith Ortiz Cofer, “Silent Dancing”
Annie Dillard, “Living Like Weasels”
Tony Earley, “Somehow Form a Family”
Philip Gerard, “What They Don’t Tell You About Hurricanes”
Lucy Grealy, “Mirrorings”
Lee Gutkind, “Difficult Decisions”
Robin Hemley, “Reading History to My Mother”
Edward Hoagland, “The Courage of Turtles”
Pico Iyer, “Where Worlds Collide”
Jamaica Kincaid, “Biography of a Dress”
Bret Lott, “Brothers”
John McPhee, “The Search for Marvin Gardens”
Naomi Shihab Nye, “Three Pokes of a Thistle”
Scott Russell Sanders, “Buckeye”
David Sedaris, “The Drama Bug”
Richard Selzer, “The Knife”
David Shields, “42 Tattoos”
Amy Tan, “Mother Tongue”
Terry Tempest Williams, “The Clan of the One-Breasted Women”
Essays on the Craft of Creative Nonfiction
Annie Dillard, “Seeing”
Tracy Kidder, “Making the Truth Believable”
Bret Lott, “Toward a Definition of Creative Nonfiction”
Mimi Schwartz, “Memoir? Fiction? Where’s the Line?”
