From an interview with nonfiction guru Gutkind conducted by Eric Parker for Fresno Famous— “[I]mmersions are so wonderful in that you walk into an immersion having an idea, idea A, but by the time you’ve spent three months or six months, you have a new idea, or a different formulation of your idea. Then, if you spend another year or two, your idea sophisticates and focuses even more. So, it’s a constant balancing challenge to make sure that you are …
The writer, and editor of the journal of concise nonfiction, Brevity, was interviewed by Mary Richert as part of her nonfictionist series on her blog No Titles: I think certain experiments, with language, point-of-view, structure, work better in the short form. Very brief essays are like a petri dish for innovation. . . . [T]he lyric, almost ethereal essay as opposed to the highly journalistic ‘article’ – are both nonfiction, and nonfiction that allows creative choices on the part of …
On thing teaching writing does for you is that you see the same issues over and over in students’ work. “Rule of Thumb: Anyone worth mentioning needs a short physical description,” I hear myself saying, “even though the person readers picture in their minds will look nothing like your Aunt Sally.” Or, “It’s strange how rewarded readers are by understanding something because of information you’ve given them previously.” Or you see again in a workshop, along with a rapt circle …
from “Visions and Revisions: Writing On Writing Well and keeping it up-to-date for 35 years,” in The American Scholar, Spring 2009 “It now occurs to me that I didn’t really find my style until I wrote On Writing Well, at the late age of 52. Until then my style more probably reflected who I wanted to be perceived as—the urbane columnist and humorist and critic. Only when I started writing as a teacher and had no agenda except to be …
Space breaks: powerful emphasis points & a guilty pleasure. The space break, an extra return after a paragraph that adds white space to a text, has practical and dramatic uses I was slow to understand. I was proud of my verbal transitions, and physical ones seemed like cheating. It took me a while to transcend my guilt, undoubtedly forged in newspapers where column-inches are precious. But verbal transitions can be lame—they are artificial devices themselves and often clunky—and space breaks do more than indicate …
from Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life: “I honestly think in order to be a writer, you have to learn to be reverent. If not, why are you writing? Why are you here?” “The conscious mind seems to block that feeling of oneness so we can function efficiently, maneuver in the world a little bit better, get our taxes done on time. But it’s even possible to have this feeling when you see—really see—a police officer, when …
Lois at her blog Narrative Nonfiction alerts writers to an experiment at Creative Nonfiction in which the editors have published, on the journal’s web site, the before and after versions of some essays in the current print issue. The revisions essentially involve massive cuts to the essays’ openings; the web page with the essays showing the changes using contrasting type colors includes a forum for reactions from readers, who can weigh in, pro and con and mixed. Creative Nonfiction’s editorial …