Archive for December, 2012

Noted: Gutkind on nonfiction’s truth

December 30, 2012 | 8 Comments

Does the nature of narrative complicate his 1-2-3 recipe? The subject is there only by the grace of the author’s language. —Joyce Carol Oates Immersion journalist and nonfiction theorist Lee Gutkind distills his practices in an essay, “Three R’s of Narrative Nonfiction,” in the New York Times’s popular Draft column that deals with writing. Responsible narrative nonfiction writers follow a similar procedure to assure accuracy while recreating events they didn’t see and others’ mental states, asserts Gutkind. Here’s the nut …

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Christmas letter follies

December 21, 2012 | 6 Comments

Solstice musings: poetry, nonfiction & Mom’s Christmas letter. [This originally ran December 16, 2008.] When I read poems and when I (rarely) write them, I’m apt to think This is an essay! When poets gave up rhyme and meter, they exposed the fact that poetry and creative nonfiction can be one in the same, though poets are free to fictionalize. (Long ago I was taught the only definition of poetry is that the poet controls the length of his line.) The similarity does …

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This, and THAT

December 18, 2012 | 13 Comments

Assault weapons, body counts & learning to be human.   Semi-automatic, high-magazine-capacity firearms—assault weapons—need to be controlled much more stringently in America. Duh, I imagine women readers responding. There’s more ambivalence among men. This position is new for me, someone who grew up in a hunting family, steeped in military service and heroic special forces exploits and with a brother in law enforcement. Many if not most cops opposed or were ambivalent about the last assault weapons ban. They’re gun …

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My top 12 books of 2012

December 15, 2012 | 11 Comments

From 30 finalists, a dozen memoirs, novels, how-to & history. While reading sixty-something books—those re-read I listed and counted again—I picked thirty favorites. I’ve now winnowed them to my top twelve. They’re listed here in the order I read them. I Knew You’d Be Lovely by Alethea Black. Black’s short stories are funny and wise. Readable from this collection on line is the fine “The Only Way Out is Through,” about a man trying to help his furious, disturbed son by taking him …

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Those best books lists . . .

December 11, 2012 | 8 Comments

Strayed’s Wild my top memoir; Ford’s Canada my top novel. I’m on track to have read some sixty-seven books in 2012. I know that because for the first time I kept a reading log, which is heavily weighted toward memoir: thirty-plus read, including re-readings. Maybe that’s because memoir’s been my own writing project, though by now I’m a true fan of the genre. The rest are a smattering of history, theory, short stories and novels. There were standouts and duds …

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Perchance to sit

December 3, 2012 | 16 Comments

I observe a crucial difference between adults and college students. The Youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature’s Priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended—William Wordsworth, “Intimations of Immortality” Sunday night, I leashed the dog and took her upstairs. I had to grade a set of student essays, and the dog, Belle, had to accompany me because of a looming event at our house. My wife would soon host sixty freshmen. …

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What we write about tells us who we are…

December 1, 2012 | 4 Comments

The reblogged post above is by Cristian Mihai, a young Romanian fiction writer, a self-publisher with a big following, and a talented blogger with many fans. After my last post, which mused about differences between the practice of fiction and nonfiction, I was struck by Chuck Palahniuk’s quote regarding the use of self in fiction—it applies as well to nonfiction. Especially to personal and dramatized nonfiction, to memoir essays and books. Writing about the broken or pained self without the …

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