[bksvol-discuss] Re: OT: Writers Club
- From: Mayrie ReNae <mrenae@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 08:06:58 -0700
Hi Jim,
Anyone with an interest in writing is welcome to join The
Writer's Practice Group. I'm not sure what kind of articles you're
hoping to write, but article writing of many kinds are forms of
Creative Nonfiction, the third genre in creative writing.
Kellie answered part of your question about how you might
gather your thoughts when away from the computer so that you won't
lose them. If you aren't a braille user, there are both old and new
forms of recording your thoughts auditorily that you could use for
that purpose. In the darker ages, people used cassette recorders for
that purpose. I believe that both the Book Courier, and Bookport
have voice recording capability that you could use to that
end. Also, there are very small and inexpensive voice recorders that
people use for that kind of notetaking. I'd not know exactly where
to buy one, but I'm sure that google could tell you.
The chats will be archived, I assume, on the friends of
bookshare web site, as have been all of the book club chats so
far. If that isn't the case, I do intend to record them myself.
I'm going to paste below the introduction to a wonderful
book on writing creative nonfiction called just that, "Writing
Creative Nonfiction," so that you can get an idea of what that genre
encompasses. If any of the kinds of writing that are listed interest
you, please join us for the first meeting of The Writer's Practice
Group on October 30 at 6:00 p.m. If you just plain like to write,
and want to share that interest with others who feel the same way,
please, join us. You might find that some other genre of writing
catches your interest.
I hope that some of this helped answer your questions. And sorry the
below is so long, but I didn't see much that I could summarize better
than it was stated.
Peace,
Mayrie
INTRODUCTION
Creative Nonfiction:
An Adventure in Lyric.
Fact, and Story
It seems fitting that this book about writing creative nonfiction
should be brought to you by a poet and a novelist: The genre has
become a fertile meeting ground for writers of all kinds, from
investigative reporters to literary short story writers and lyric
poets. Somehow all their diverse interests converge in a genre that
seems expansive enough to connect the self to the larger world of
experience, shaping its form to tell the truth of a particular moment.
Creative nonfiction has emerged in the last few years as the province
of factual prose that is also literary in jused with the stylistic
devices, tropes, and rhetorical flourishes of the best fiction and
the most lyrical of narrative poetry. It is fact-based writing that
remains compelling, undiminished by the passage of time, that has at
heart an interest in enduring human values: foremost a fidelity to
accuracy, to truthfulness.
Its very literariness distinguishes this writing from deadline
reportage, daily journalism, academic criticism, and critical
biography. It is storytelling of a very high order through the
revelation of character and the suspense of plot, the subtle braiding
of themes, rhythms and resonance, memory and imaginative research,
precise and original language, and a narrative stance that is
intelligent, humble, questioning, distinctive, individual and
implicitly alert to the world.
Creative nonfiction is, in one sense, a very new genre the term has
come into fashion only in the past few years. There's ongoing
discussion about whether "creative nonfiction" is the most useful
appellationsome have suggested "literary journalism," though that
would exclude most memoir, or "narrative nonfiction," though the
lyric essay, for instance, does not really unfold as conventional
narrative. Creative nonfiction remains the most inclusive term for
such diverse literary expression: memoir, lyric and personal essay,
plotted narrative, biography, meditation, nature writing. Recognizing
that this fact-based genre now has taken on a distinctive artistic character,
university M.F.A. programs in Creative Writing have begun to include
it as a third genre in their curricula.
Publishers' lists are bursting with new works of creative nonfiction,
and trade magazines and literary journals are responding to readers'
burgeoning interest in creative nonfiction, the authority of fact and
true-life experience undergirding all manner of stories.
But though it feels young and vibrant, creative nonfiction has a long
history and an honorable provenance. Its roots lie in the literary
essays of Montaigne, Rousseau, and Thoreau; the humorous "true"
adventures of Mark Twain; the documentary "immersion" journalism of
Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens, Jack London, and George Orwell; the
timeless war correspondence of Stephen Crane and Martha Gellhorn; the
artful memoirs of Ernest Hemingway, Beryl Markham, and Mary McCarthy;
the cultural critiques of James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, and Marvel
Cooke; the New Journalism of Tom Wolfe and Ken Kesey; the "Gonzo"
journalism of Hunter S. Thompson; the nature writing of Annie
Dillard, Barry Lopez, Terry Tempest Williams, and a host of others.
Seen in this light, Life on the Mississippi, The People of the Abyss,
Hiroshima, and In Cold Blood are all towering works of creative nonfiction.
In the pages that follow, a gathering of working creative nonfiction
writers who also teach their passion talk about what they do and how
they do it. From Terry Tempest Williams's inspiring manifesto, "Why I
Write," to Bob Reiss's "Surviving Overseas," these writers probe the
many facets of creative nonfiction craft. Many of the instructive
pieces are linked to companion essays or book excerpts that exemplify
the principles of craft as the particular author espouses and
practices them. These are by the same authors and appear in the last
section of the book, the "Creative Nonfiction Reader."
In "But Tell It Slant: From Poetry to Prose and Back Again," Judith
Ortiz Cofer explores the uses of poetry in discovering the story.
Brenda Miller, in "A Braided Heart: Shaping the Lyric Essay,"
demonstrates implicitly the braiding of thematic strands into a lyrical essay.
"Saying Goodbye to 'Once Upon a Time,' or Implementing Postmodernism
in Creative Nonfiction" by Laura Wexler takes on the practical
problems of research, along with the profound issue of which truth
the writer can tell there may always be a hole in the center of the
story, the great unknowable fact and the writer must make choices
informed not only by aesthetics but by ethics in order to present the
story in its integrity.
Alan Cheuse in "Finding a Story, or Using the Whole Pig" gives
practical as well as aesthetic advice for making the most out of the
raw material of the world.
Creative nonfiction is far too complex and inclusive a genre to be
limited only to memoir though the personal voice and the author's
memory and imagination certainly contribute in all sorts of ways. In
"Writing Personal Essays: On the Necessity of Turning Oneself Into a
Character" Phillip Lopate addresses the necessity for creating the
narrative "I" as a living character on the page and how that basic
act defines the concerns of the essay.
Michael Pearson takes on the quest for one's own autobiography in
"Researching Your Own Life." "Taking Yourself Out of the Story:
Narrative Stance and the Upright Pronoun" challenges the writer to
know just why he or she must become a character in the story. Robin
Hemley ("The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Writer") explores
another kind of challenge: how to shape a long memoir.
In "As Time Goes By; Creating Biography" and "Twelve Years and
Counting: Writing Biography," two accomplished biographers, Philip
Furia and Honor Moore, write about how to move beyond the cliches of
biography. They address the issues of interviewing and doing
imaginative research, what to do with that research, and how to make
it serve the story in an integral way.
Beverly Lowry in "Not the Killing But Why" shows us a journalist hot
on the trail of a living story.
Christopher Merrill and Bob Reiss explore the dangers, physical,
emotional, psychological that the writer encounters in writing about
real people in real conflict. "The 'New' Literature" reminds us that
one of the indispensable ingredients of the best creative nonfiction
is courage the courage of one's convictions, the courage to tell the
truth, and sometimes even the courage to go into harm's way and
discover the truth.
Dinty Moore ("The Comfortable Chair: Using Humor in Creative
Nonfiction") shows us how humor can also lead to truth.
Stanley Colbert, one of the most distinguished editors, publishers,
and literary agents of his generation, offers a primer on the
practical business of drafting a book proposal, the common way to
"place" a nonfiction manuscript. And two nationally renowned First
Amendment attorneys, Nicholas Hentoff and Harvey Silverglate, team up
to penetrate the mysteries of legal issues, such as defamation of
character and invasion of privacy, that affect the writer of creative
nonfiction.
We've included a section about what happens after publication:
"AftershocksResponses to the Genre." The three responses by E.
Ethelbert Miller, Lauren Slater, and Lee Gutkind all address critiques,
misunderstandings, disagreements, conventional expectations,
ongoing issues of aesthetics and ethics, and real consequences of
publishing in the genre.
As a final gift to the reader, we've included the "Creative
Nonfiction Reader" offering the companion pieces and other exemplary
essays to inspire, delight, teach, and simply to enjoy.
It's a fascinating enterprise, this business of trying to tell the
truth about the world through writing that is at once factual and
literary. It calls for a reporter's investigative determination, a
photographer's eye for detail, a historian's sense of documentation,
a poet's passion for language, a storyteller's feel for narrative
art, a detective's nose for truth, a travel agent's ability to
organize an itinerary, some wise forethought, a little courage to put
yourself on the line, a pencil and paper, and a bit of luck.
So good reading. And good writing.
Carolyn Forche and Philip Gerard
At 04:28 AM 10/19/2007, you wrote:
Hi,
I have two questions about this. First, is it OK to join if all I want to
learn to do is write articles? Second, if we have writers here who are
blind, may I discuss ways to collect and keep ideas long enough to get to
the computer and write them down and general organizational stuff off list
with you? Third, would it be possible for anyone to record the chats?
Thanks.
Jim
James D Homme, , Usability Engineering, Highmark Inc.,
james.homme@xxxxxxxxxxxx, 412-544-1810
"It's more important for me to start to do the right thing than it is to
wait until I think I
can do it just right."
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