Writing Creative Nonfiction

Experience the power and the promise of working in today' most exciting literary form: Creative Nonfiction

Writing Creative Nonfiction presents more than thirty essays examining every key element of the craft, from researching ideas and structuring the story, to reportage and personal reflection. You'll learn from some of today's top creative nonfiction writers, including:

   • Terry Tempest Williams - Analyze your motivation for writing, its value, and its strength.
   • Alan Cheuse - Discover how interesting, compelling essays can be drawn from every corner of your life and the world in which you live.
   • Phillip Lopate - Build your narrator–yourself–into a fully fleshed-out character, giving your readers a clearer, more compelling idea of who is speaking and why they should listen.
   • Robin Hemley - Develop a narrative strategy for structuring your story and making it cohesive.
   • Carolyn Forche - Master the journalistic ethics of creative nonfiction.
   • Dinty W. Moore - Use satire, exaggeration, juxtaposition, and other forms of humor in creative nonfiction.
   • Philip Gerard - Understand the narrative stance–why and how an author should, or should not, enter into the story.


Through insightful prompts and exercises, these contributors help make the challenge of writing creative nonfiction–whether biography, true-life adventure, memoir, or narrative history–a welcome, rewarding endeavor.

You'll also find an exciting, creative nonfiction "reader" comprising the final third of the book, featuring pieces from Barry Lopez, Annie Dillard, Beverly Lowry, Phillip Lopate, and more–selections so extraordinary, they will teach, delight, inspire, and entertain you for years to come!

Carolyn Forché is one of the most widely respected poets in the country, with her books The Country Between Us and The Angel of History ranking among the top collections published in recent years. She teaches in the MFA program at George Mason University. Philip Gerard is the author of three novels, a memoir and two books of writing instruction for Story Press: Creative Nonfiction and Writing a Book that Makes a Difference. A past president of AWP, Gerard teaches in the MFA program at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.