This is a genre. For the magazine, see Creative Nonfiction (magazine)

Creative nonfiction (also known as literary or narrative nonfiction) is a genre of writing that uses literary styles and techniques to create factually accurate narratives. Creative nonfiction contrasts with other nonfiction, such as technical writing or journalism, which is also rooted in accurate fact, but is not primarily written in service to its craft. As a genre, creative nonfiction is still relatively young, and is only beginning to be scrutinized with the same critical analysis given to fiction and poetry. It is sometimes referred to as docufiction.^{[citation needed]}

Characteristics and definition[link]

For a text to be considered creative nonfiction, it must be factually accurate, and written with attention to literary style and technique. “Ultimately, the primary goal of the creative nonfiction writer is to communicate information, just like a reporter, but to shape it in a way that reads like fiction.”^[1] Forms within this genre include personal essays, memoir, travel writing, food writing, biography, literary journalism, and other hybridized essays. Critic Chris Anderson claims that the genre can be understood best by splitting it into two subcategories—the personal essay and the journalistic essay—but the genre is currently defined by its lack of established conventions.^[2]

Literary critic Barbara Lounsberry — in her book The Art of Fact — suggests four constitutive characteristics of the genre, the first of which is “Documentable subject matter chosen from the real world as opposed to ‘invented’ from the writer’s mind.”^[3] By this, she means that the topics and events discussed in the text verifiably exist in the natural world. The second characteristic is “Exhaustive research,”^[3] which she claims allows writers “novel perspectives on their subjects” and “also permits them to establish the credibility of their narratives through verifiable references in their texts.”^[4] The third characteristic that Lounsberry claims is crucial in defining the genre is “The scene”. She stresses the importance of describing and revivifying the context of events in contrast to the typical journalistic style of objective reportage.^[5] The fourth and final feature she suggests is “Fine writing: a literary prose style”. “Verifiable subject matter and exhaustive research guarantee the nonfiction side of literary nonfiction; the narrative form and structure disclose the writer’s artistry; and finally, its polished language reveals that the goal all along has been literature.”^[6]

Creative nonfiction may be structured like traditional fiction narratives, as is true of Fenton Johnson's story of love and loss, "Geography of the Heart," and Virginia Holman's "Rescuing Patty Hearst." When book-length works of creative nonfiction follow a story-like arc, they are sometimes called narrative nonfiction. Creative nonfiction often escapes traditional boundaries of narrative altogether, as happens in the bittersweet banter of Natalia Ginzburg's essay, "He and I," in John McPhee's hypnotic tour of Atlantic City, "In Search of Marvin Gardens," and in Ander Monson's playful, experimental essays in "Neck-Deep and Other Predicaments."

Ethics[link]

Writers of creative or narrative non-fiction often discuss the level, and limits, of creative invention in their works, and justify the approaches they have taken to relating true events. Melanie McGrath, whose book Silvertown, an account of her grandmother’s life, is ‘written in a novelist’s idiom’^[7], writes in the follow-up, Hopping, that the known facts of her stories are ‘the canvas on to which I have embroidered. Some of the facts have slipped through the holes – we no longer know them nor have any means of verifying them – and in these cases I have reimagined scenes or reconstructed events in a way I believe reflects the essence of the scene or the event in the minds and hearts of the people who lived through it. [...] To my mind this literary tinkering does not alter the more profound truth of the story.’^[8] Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi, authors of The Sugar Girls, a novelistic story based on interviews with former sugar-factory workers, make a similar point: 'Although we have tried to remain faithful to what our interviewees have told us, at a distance of over half a century many memories are understandably incomplete, and where necessary we have used our own research, and our imaginations, to fill in the gaps. [...] However, the essence of the stories related here is true, as they were told to us by those who experienced them at first hand.'^[9]

In recent years,^[when?] there have been several well-publicized incidents of memoir writers who exaggerated or fabricated certain facts in their work.^[10]

In 1998, Swiss writer and journalist Daniel Ganzfried revealed that Binjamin Wilkomirski's memoir Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood detailing his experiences as a child survivor of the Holocaust, contained factual inaccuracies.^[11]

The James Frey controversy hit in 2006, when The Smoking Gun website revealed that Frey's memoir, A Million Little Pieces, contained experiences that turned out to be fabrications.^[12]

In 2008, the New York Times featured an article about the memoirist Margaret Seltzer, whose pen name is Margaret B. Jones. Her publisher Riverhead Books canceled the publication of Seltzer's book, "Love and Consequences," when it was revealed that Seltzer's story of her alleged experiences growing up as a half white, half Native American foster child and Bloods gang member in South Central Los Angeles were fictitious.

Although there have been instances of traditional and literary journalists falsifying their stories, the ethics applied to creative nonfiction are the same as those that apply to journalism. The truth is meant to be upheld, just told in a literary fashion.

Literary criticism[link]

To date, there is very little published literary criticism of nonfiction works, despite the fact that the genre is often published in respected publications such as The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Harper's and Esquire.^[13] A handful of the most widely recognized writers in the genre such as Gay Talese, Tom Wolfe, John McPhee, Joan Didion and Norman Mailer, have seen some criticism on their more prominent works. “Critics to date, however, have tended to focus on only one or two of each writer’s works, to illustrate particular critical points.”^[14] These analyses of a few key pieces are hardly in-depth or as comprehensive as the criticism and analyses of their fictional contemporaries. As the popularity of the genre continues to expand, many nonfiction authors and a handful of literary critics are calling for more extensive literary analysis of the genre.

“If, these four features delimit an important art form of our time, a discourse grounded in fact but artful in execution that might be called literary nonfiction, what is needed is serious critical attention of all kinds to this work: formal criticism (both Russian Formalism and New Criticism), historical, biographical, cultural, structuralist and deconstructionist, reader-response criticism and feminist (criticism).”^[14]

“Nonfiction is no longer the bastard child, the second class citizen; literature is no longer reified, mystified, unavailable. This is the contribution that poststructuralist theory has to make to an understanding of literary nonfiction, since poststructuralist theorists are primarily concerned with how we make meaning and secure authority for claims in meaning of language.”^[15]

See also[link]

• Documentary
• Docufiction
• Ethnofiction

References[link]

Further reading[link]

Chronological order of publication (oldest first)

• Johnson, E. L.; Wolfe, Tom (1975). The New Journalism. London: Pan Books. ISBN 0-330-24315-2. 
• Gutkind, Lee (1997). The Art of Creative Nonfiction: Writing and Selling the Literature of Reality. New York: Wiley. ISBN 0-471-11356-5. 
• Associated Writing Programs; Forche, Carolyn; Gerard, Philip (2001). Writing Creative Nonfiction: Instruction and Insights from Teachers of the Associated Writing Programs. Cincinnati: Writer's Digest Books. ISBN 1-884910-50-5. 
• Dillard, Annie; Gutkind, Lee (2005). In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN 0-393-32665-9. 
• Gutkind, Lee, ed. (2008). Keep It Real: Everything You Need to Know About Researching and Writing Creative Nonfiction. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN 978-0-393-06561-9. 

External links[link]

• Creative Nonfiction a magazine and resource devoted to the creative nonfiction genre
• Shadowbox Magazine a binannual journal of creative nonfiction
• Etude a narrative non-fiction magazine
• Poets & Writers a nonprofit literary organization serving poets, fiction and creative nonfiction writers
• Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction (Canada)
• What is creative non-fiction? Phil Druker, University of Idaho
• Creative Nonfiction resources for Australian writers
• Creative Nonfiction Bibliography Joan Clingan, Prescott College
• PodLit Creative Nonfiction Podcast
• UC Irvine Literary Journalism Degree Program
• Stonecoast Main MFA in Creative (Non-fiction) Writing
• The Sugar Girls website

Audio/video links[link]

• Audio CSPAN – Interview with Lee Gutkind gives a definition of the genre
• Audio CSPAN – Interview with Lee Gutkind gives examples of authors who write in the genre

Lena Dunham
Dunham at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival premiere of Supporting Characters
Born	(1986-05-13) May 13, 1986 (age 26) New York City, New York, United States
Occupation	Actress, writer, director
Parents	Laurie Simmons Carroll Dunham

Lena Dunham ( /ˈlinə ˈdənəm/ LEE-nə DUN-um; born May 13, 1986) is an American filmmaker and actress.^[1] She directed the independent film Tiny Furniture (2010), and is the creator and star of the HBO series Girls.

Background and education[link]

Dunham was born in New York City^[2] and is the daughter of Laurie Simmons, a photographer and designer, and Carroll Dunham, a painter.^[3] Dunham attended Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn, NY, where she met Tiny Furniture actress and co-star in the HBO series Girls, Jemima Kirke.

She graduated from Oberlin College in 2008, where she studied creative arts.^[4] Her father is Protestant^[5] (Dunham has said that her father is a Mayflower descendant)^[6] and her mother is Jewish; Dunham has stated that she feels "very culturally Jewish".^[7][8]

Career[link]

Dunham's 2010 feature film, Tiny Furniture, won Best Narrative Feature at South by Southwest Music and Media Conference.^[9] Dunham herself plays the lead role of Aura.^[3]

Dunham's television series, Girls, was greenlit by HBO in early 2012.^[10] The show is executive produced by Judd Apatow.^[11] Three episodes were screened to positive response at the 2011 South by Southwest Festival.^[12] The series premiered April 15, 2012.

Dunham had a cameo in the movie Supporting Characters, along with her fellow Tiny Furniture actor Alex Karpovsky.^[13]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Lena Dunham at the Internet Movie Database
• Lena Dunham on Fresh Air in 2012
• Lena Dunham on Fresh Air in 2010
• New York Magazine on Girls
• Criterion Collection Essay "Tiny Furniture Out There" By Phillip Lopate

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Lee Gutkind (born 1945) is an American writer.

Gurkind is the founder of the literary magazine Creative Nonfiction and the author or editor of over a dozen books. He started the first ever MFA program in creative nonfiction at the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh. Currently, he is the Distinguished Writer in Residence at the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes and professor in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University.^[1]

Early life[link]

Gutkind was born in 1945 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and educated at the University of Pittsburgh. Formally a motorcyclist, a medical insider, a sailor, a college professor, a mid-life father and a literary whipping boy, Lee Gutkind was an unlikely success, as he explained in his previous book, Forever Fat: Essays by the Godfather. His upcoming book, entitled, Truckin’ with Sam: A Father and Son, The Mick and The Dyl, Rockin’ and Rollin’, On the Road, is a follow-up to his memoir Forever Fat. His immersion experiences into the motorcycle subculture, the organ transplant milieu, baseball umpires and in other heretofore un-mined worlds about which he has written books, along with the literary techniques he has developed, has helped to create a new paradigm for writing about the world — the “literature of reality” that is creative nonfiction.^[1]

Gutkind is founder and editor of the journal Creative Nonfiction, the first and largest literary journal devoted to creative nonfiction. He is also editor of Best Creative Nonfiction, an annual anthology of creative nonfiction. Gutkind is author of Keep It Real: Everything You Need to Know About Researching and Writing Creative Nonfiction. Gutkind has written 15 books, and edited 18 collections and volumes. In celebration of his impact on the genre, In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction, was published in 2004 by W.W. Norton. Book List called In Fact “an electrifying anthology . . . an exciting and defining creative nonfiction primer.” ^[1]

Vanity Fair Magazine proclaimed Gutkind “the Godfather” behind the creative nonfiction movement, and Harper’s Magazine noted that he is “the leading figure behind the creative nonfiction movement.”

Career[link]

Lee Gutkind’s books have been praised for being simultaneously personal and universally informative. His award-winning Many Sleepless Nights, an inside chronicle of the world of organ transplantation, has been reprinted in Italian, Korean and Japanese editions. An Unspoken Art, a profile of veterinary medicine, was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection. His book about major league umpires, The Best Seat In Baseball, But You Have to Stand!, was called by USA Today "unprecedented, revealing, startling and poignant."

Gutkind frequently crosses genres as a writer, editor and reporter. He is a published novelist, an award-winning documentary filmmaker, and served as a consulting editor at National Public Radio in Washington, D.C. teaching narrative techniques to reporters, producers and editors on the Science Desk. Also as the former director of the writing program at the University of Pittsburgh, Lee Gutkind pioneered the teaching of creative nonfiction, conducting workshops and presenting readings throughout the United States, Europe, Australia and Israel.

Gutkind founded the creative nonfiction program and MFA degree at the University of Pittsburgh, the first in the world. He helped found the low residency MFA program in creative nonfiction at Goucher College, and was director of the Mid-Atlantic Creative Nonfiction Writers’ Conference at Goucher for 11 years. He was the director and founder of the 412 Creative Nonfiction Literary Festival for four years, a citywide literary event that provides professional development to students and city residents and fosters the strength of the local writing community. Gutkind also served as the Virginia G. Piper Distinguished Writer in Residence at Arizona State University in 2007-2008.

Awards[link]

Lee Gutkind's list of honorary achievements include: The Steve Allan Individual Award, by United Mental Health, Inc; Chancellor's Award for Public Service; Meritorious Service Award by American Council on Transplantation; Howard Blakeslee Award by the American Heart Association for "outstanding journalism; Golden Eagle Award by CINE, for the film, A Place Just Right; Recipient of National Endowment of the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship. In 2004, Gutkind was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Chatham College.

Books[link]

Written by Lee[link]

Edited by Lee[link]

Sources[link]

Other major sources used in this article but not (always) in-line cited:

• Lee Gutkind's Website
• Contemporary Authors Online. The Gale Group, 2007. PEN (Permanent Entry Number): 0000040630.

External links[link]

• Lee Gutkind's Website
• The Creative Nonfiction Website
• Almost Human Website

Josip Novakovich (Croatian: Novaković) is a Croatian American writer.

His grandparents had immigrated from the Croatia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to Cleveland, Ohio, and, after the First World War, his grandfather returned to Croatia, that then become Yugoslavia. Josip Novakovich was born in Croatia (in 1956) and grew up in the Central Croatian town of Daruvar, studied medicine at the University of Novi Sad. At the age of 20 he moved to USA,^[1] continuing his education at Vassar College (B.A.), Yale University (M.Div.), and the University of Texas, Austin (M.A.).

He has published a novel (April Fool's Day), three short story collections (Yolk, Salvation and Other Disasters, Infidelities: Stories of War and Lust), two collections of narrative essays (Apricots from Chernobyl, Plum Brandy: Croatian Journey) and two textbooks (Writing Fiction Step by Step, Fiction Writer's Workshop).

Novakovich has taught at Nebraska Indian Community College, Bard College, Moorhead State University, Antioch University Los Angeles, creative writing at the University of Cincinnati, and Pennsylvania State University. He is currently in Montreal teaching at Concordia University, where his son Joseph attends McGill University.

Mr. Novakovich is the recipient of the Whiting Writer's Award,^[2] a Guggenheim fellowship, two fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, panelist of National Endowment of the Arts, an award from the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. He was anthologized in Best American Poetry, Pushcart Prize (three times)^[3], and O.Henry Prize Stories.^[4] Kirkus Reviews finds Novakovich as "the best American shorts stories writer of the decade".

His works were published in almost all top writers' magazines in the USA (Ploughshares, The New York Times Magazine, Double Take, The Threepenny Review etc.)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Josip Novakovich at the Pennsylvania State University Department of English
• Cincinnati Magazine, Dec 1998, p. 57
• http://www.matis.hr/zbornici/2001/Text/Text4-1.htm Hrvatski iseljenički zbornik 2001., Vladimir P. Goss: Hrvatski duh u engleskom ruhu (summary in English CROATIAN SPIRIT IN ENGLISH ATTIRE )

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