Table of Contents
Preface to the Instructor
Introduction
I. Beginning/Points of Inspiration
Keeping a Journal
Family Stories: History as Heartbeat
Memory and Imagination
Telling Lies to tell the Truth
Making the Old Story New
A Picture Brings Forth a Thousand Words
Object Lessons
II. Exercises for Developing Craft and Technique
Voice and Style
Finding Your True Subjects
A Question of Style
Conditional Voice
Breaking the Rules
Perspective and Point of View
Choosing Points of View
Innocent Perspective
Using Biography
Detail, Image, and Symbol
Detailing a Narrative
Turning Abstractions into Images and Action
Using all of Your Senses
Writing from Art
Symbols, not Cymbals
Figurative Language
Diction
Origins of Words
Foreign Flavor
Simplify
Tell-Tale Dialect
Setting
Setting with Personality
Setting from Family History
Setting Your Hometown
Creating Tension
Foundations of Tension
A Spell of Trouble: Conflict and Tension
Reversing the Action
Trading Characters, Settings, Conflicts
Reverberating Closure
Rhythm
Finding Your Rhythm
Song and Story
Listening to Nature
Character and Dialogue
Populating a Piece
Inside a Character’s Mind
Compelling Characters
Dialogue Dropping from the Eaves
III. Exercises for Exploring Revision, Sub-genres and Frequent Concerns of Creative Nonfiction
Revision
Re-reading, Re-imagining, Re-shaping
What’s in a Name: Finding a Title
Revision: Beyond the Frame
Revision: Re-imagining Character and Conflict
Creating Scenes: A Revision Narrative
Workshop: Thirteen Ways of Looking for Revision
Exploring the Sub-genres of Creative Nonfiction
From Memory to Memoir
Biographical Sketch: Researching a Life
Personal Opinion Essay: Taking a Stand
Living Sources: Gathering and Using Information
Reflective Writing: Reflecting on the World
Writing About Place
A Piece of History
Exploring Frequent Concerns of Creative Nonfiction
Finding the Emotional Truth
Writing Between the Lines: Subtext
Time-lines and the Larger Context
The Passage of Time
Mapping Your Memory
Vignettes
Writing Inside the Story: Meta-writing
IV. A Collection of Creative Nonfiction
Diane Ackerman, “The Truth about Truffles”
Sherman Alexie, “Superman and Me”
Rudolfo Anaya, “Why I Love Tourists: Confessions of a Dharma Bum”
Wendell Berry, “An Entrance to the Woods”
Philip Brady, “Myth and Uncertainty” from To Prove My Blood: A Tale of Emigration and the Afterlife
Bruce Chatwin, from In Patagonia
Wayson Choy, from Paper Shadows: A Chinatown Childhood
Judith Ortiz Cofer, “Silent Dancing”
Fred D’Aguiar, “A Son in Shadow”
Edwidge Danticat, “Westbury Court”
Rhina Espaillat, “Bilingual/Bilingue”
Shirley Geok-lin Lim, “Splendor and Squalor” from Among the White Moon Faces: An Asian-American Memoir of Homelands
Dana Gioia, “Lonely Impulse of Delight: One Reader’s Childhood”
Joy Harjo, “The Flying Man”
Jamaica Kincaid, “Biography of a Dress”
Barry Lopez, “Landscape and Narrative”
Naomi Shihab Nye, “Three Pokes of a Thistle”
Hilda Raz, “Looking at Aaron” from What Becomes You
Leslie Marmon Silko, “Landscape, History, and the Pueblo Imagination”
Jonathan Swift, “A Modest Proposal”
Diane Thiel, “Crossing the Border” from The White Horse: A Colombian Journey
Henry David Thoreau, “Walking”
Alice Walker, “Am I Blue”
Anthony Walton, from Mississippi
Terry Tempest Williams, “Peregrine Falcon,” from Refuge
V. Writers About the Art of Creative Nonfiction
Margaret Atwood, “Nine Beginnings”
Lee Gutkind, “The Creative Nonfiction Police”
Tracy Kidder, “Making the Truth Believable”
Brett Lott, “Toward a Definition of Creative Nonfiction”
Gregory Martin, “Other People’s Memories”
John McNally, “Humor Incarnate”
Sue Miller, “From a Lecture on Revision”
