The most inclusive collection of creative nonfiction available, Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: The Art of Truth is the only anthology that brings together examples of all three of the main forms in the genre: the literary memoir, the personal essay, and literary journalism. Featuring a generous and diverse sampling of more than sixty works, this collection includes beautiful, disturbing, and instructive works of literary memoir by such writers as Mary McCarthy, Annie Dillard, and Judy Ruiz; smart, funny, and moving personal essays by authors ranging from E.B. White to Phillip Lopate to Ntozake Shange; and incisive, vivid, and quirky examples of literary journalism by Truman Capote, Barbara Ehrenreich, Sebastian Junger, and many others. This unique volume also contains examples of captivating nature writing, exciting literary travel writing, brilliant essays in science, surprising creative cultural criticism, and moving literary diaries and journals, incorporating several classic selections to set a context for the contemporary work. The editor's general introduction and introductions to each of the five sections provide useful definitions, crucial history, critical context, and abundant issues to debate. Ideal for undergraduate and graduate courses in creative nonfiction, literary journalism, essay writing, and all levels of composition, Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: The Art of Truth is also an essential resource for all nonfiction writers, from novices to professionals.

Credits

Introduction

SECTION 1. LITERARY DIARIES AND JOURNALS

John Cheever

from The Journals

May Sarton

from Journal of a Solitude

Gerald Early

"Digressions"

M.F.K. Fisher

"Paris Journal"

George Dennison

from Temple

Gretel Ehrlich

"From the Journals"

Edward Robb Ellis

from Diary of a Century

SECTION 2. LITERARY MEMOIR

James Thurber

"Snapshot of a Dog"

Mary McCarthy

"Yonder Peasant, Who Is He?" from Memories of a Catholic Girlhood

Annie Dillard

from An American Childhood

Maxine Hong Kingston

"No Name Woman," from The Woman Warrior

Hilton Als

"Notes on My Mother"

Andre Dubus III

"Tracks and Ties"

Kathryn Harrison

from The Kiss

Dorothy Allison

from Two or Three Things I Know for Sure

Andre Dubus

"Lights of the Long Night" and "Husbands," from Broken Vessels

Fenton Johnson

from Geography of the Heart

Mary Karr

from The Liar's Club

Judy Ruiz

"Oranges and Sweet Sister Boy"

Spalding Gray

"Sex and Death to the Age 14"

Tobias Wolff

"A Federal Offense," from In Pharaoh's Army

Harvey Pekar and R. Crumb

"The Harvey Pekar Name Story"

SECTION 3. THE PERSONAL ESSAY

E.B. White

"Once More to the Lake"

James Baldwin

"Equal in Paris," from Notes of a Native Son

Ralph Ellison

"On Being the Target of Discrimination"

Shirley Abbott

"That Old-Time Religion," from Womenfolks

Hayden Carruth

"Country Matters"

Philip Lopate

"The Dead Father: A Rememberance of Donald Barthelme"

Vivian Gornick

"At the University: Little Murders of the Soul"

Jamaica Kincaid

"A Small Place"

Nancy Mairs

"Body in Trouble," from Waist-High in the World

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

"Current Events," from Colored People

Thomas Lynch

"The Undertaking"

Jane Shapiro

"This is What You Need for a Happy Life"

Joy Williams

"Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp"

Ntozake Shange

"What Is It We Really Harvestin' Here?"

Stanton Michaels

"How to Write a Personal Essay"

SECTION 4. LITERARY JOURNALISM

John Hersey

"The Fire," from Hiroshima

Truman Capote

from In Cold Blood

Michael Herr

"Illumination Rounds," from Dispatches

Norman Mailer

"The Turkey Shoot," from The Executioner's Song

Mikal Gilmore

"Last Words," from Shot in the Heart

Joyce Johnson

"November 1987," from What Lisa Knew

Barbara Ehrenreich

"Nickel-and-Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America"

Ann Hodgman

"No Wonder They Call Me a Bitch"

Joan Didion

from Salvador

Tom Wolfe

"Yeager," from The Right Stuff

Jon Krakauer

"Summit, 1:25p.m., May 10, 1996, 29,028 Feet" from Into Thin Air

Sebastian Junger

"The Zero-Moment Point," from The Perfect Storm

SECTION 5. THE ART OF THE PARTICULAR: CREATIVE NONFICTION CLASSIFIED BY SUBJECT

NATURE WRITING

Edward Abbey

Memoir: "Havasu," from Desert Solitaire

Sue Hubbell

Personal Essay: "Spring," from A Country Year

John McPhee

Literary Journalism: from Annals of the Former World

LITERARY TRAVEL

Gretel Ehrlich

Memoir: "Lijiang," from Questions of Heaven

Naomi Shihab Nye

Personal Essay: "One Village"

Eddy L. Harris

Literary Journalism: from Mississippi Solo

THE SCIENCE ESSAY

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

Memoir: from The Hidden Life of Dogs

Lewis Thomas

Personal Essay: "The Medusa and the Snail"

Atul Gawande

Literary Journalism: "When Doctors Make Mistakes"

CREATIVE CULTURAL CRITICISM

Meghan Daum

Memoir: Music Is My Bag: Confessions of a Lapsed Oboist"

Janet Malcolm

Personal Essay: from The Silent Woman

David Foster Wallace

Literary Journalism: "Shipping Out: On the (Nearly Lethal) Comforts of a Luxury Cruise