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| creative nonfiction writing courses: Writing Creative Nonfiction Philip Gerard, 2001-05-10 Experience the power and the promise of working in today' most exciting literary form: Creative Nonfiction Writing Creative Nonfiction presents more than thirty essays examining every key element of the craft, from researching ideas and structuring the story, to reportage and personal reflection. You'll learn from some of today's top creative nonfiction writers, including: • Terry Tempest Williams - Analyze your motivation for writing, its value, and its strength. • Alan Cheuse - Discover how interesting, compelling essays can be drawn from every corner of your life and the world in which you live. • Phillip Lopate - Build your narrator–yourself–into a fully fleshed-out character, giving your readers a clearer, more compelling idea of who is speaking and why they should listen. • Robin Hemley - Develop a narrative strategy for structuring your story and making it cohesive. • Carolyn Forche - Master the journalistic ethics of creative nonfiction. • Dinty W. Moore - Use satire, exaggeration, juxtaposition, and other forms of humor in creative nonfiction. • Philip Gerard - Understand the narrative stance–why and how an author should, or should not, enter into the story. Through insightful prompts and exercises, these contributors help make the challenge of writing creative nonfiction–whether biography, true-life adventure, memoir, or narrative history–a welcome, rewarding endeavor. You'll also find an exciting, creative nonfiction reader comprising the final third of the book, featuring pieces from Barry Lopez, Annie Dillard, Beverly Lowry, Phillip Lopate, and more–selections so extraordinary, they will teach, delight, inspire, and entertain you for years to come! |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: Anatomy of a Premise Line Jeff Lyons, 2015-06-05 If a story is going to fail, it will do so first at the premise level. Anatomy of a Premise Line: How to Master Premise and Story Development for Writing Success is the only book of its kind to identify a seven-step development process that can be repeated and applied to any story idea. This process will save you time, money, and potentially months of wasted writing. So whether you are trying to write a feature screenplay, develop a television pilot, or just trying to figure out your next story move as a writer, this book gives you the tools you need to know which ideas are worth pursuing. In addition to the 7-step premise development tool, Anatomy of a Premise Line also presents a premise and idea testing methodology that can be used to test any developed premise line. Customized exercises and worksheets are included to facilitate knowledge transfer, so that by the end of the book, you will have a fully developed premise line, log line, tagline, and a completed premise-testing checklist. Here is some of what you will learn inside: Ways to determine whether or not your story is a good fit for print or screen Case studies and hands-on worksheets to help you learn by participating in the process Tips on how to effectively work through writer’s block A companion website (www.routledge.com/cw/lyons) with additional worksheets, videos, and interactive tools to help you learn the basics of perfecting a killer premise line |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs Beth Ann Fennelly, 2017-10-10 “A surprisingly maximalist portrait of a life.” —New York Times Book Review The 52 micro-memoirs in genre-defying Heating & Cooling offer bright glimpses into a richly lived life, combining the compression of poetry with the truth-telling of nonfiction into one heartfelt, celebratory book. Alternatingly wistful and wry, ranging from childhood recollections to quirky cultural observations, these micro-memoirs build on one another to shape a life from unexpectedly illuminating moments. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: Writing Creative Nonfiction Theodore Albert Rees Cheney, 1987 What do writers as diverse as Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, Joan Didion, and Hunter S. Thompson have in common? All are masters of the art of writing creative nonfiction, capable of infusing the most prosaic of topics with wit, poignancy, and style. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: Creative Nonfiction Philip Gerard, 2004-02-19 Nonfiction is in the facts. Creative nonfiction is in the telling. It reads like fiction, but stays loyal to the truth. Philip Gerard walks this fine line with confidence, style and utter zeal, looking at the world with a reporters unflinching eye and offering it up with all the skill of a master storyteller. With the same clarity and passion, Gerard offers instruction and advice to help aspiring and experienced writers create pieces so compelling, so engaging, that readers will never forget them. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: Keep Moving Maggie Smith, 2020-10-06 The NATIONAL BESTSELLER from the author of YOU COULD MAKE THIS PLACE BEAUTIFUL “A meditation on kindness and hope, and how to move forward through grief.” —NPR “A shining reminder to learn all we can from this moment, rebuilding ourselves in the darkness so that we may come out wiser, kinder, and stronger on the other side.” —The Boston Globe “Powerful essays on loss, endurance, and renewal.” —People For fans of Glennon Doyle, Cheryl Strayed, and Anne Lamott, a collection of quotes and essays on facing life’s challenges with creativity, courage, and resilience. When Maggie Smith, the award-winning author of the viral poem “Good Bones,” started writing inspirational daily Twitter posts in the wake of her divorce, they unexpectedly caught fire. In this deeply moving book of quotes and essays, Maggie writes about new beginnings as opportunities for transformation. Like kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken ceramics with gold, Keep Moving celebrates the beauty and strength on the other side of loss. This is a book for anyone who has gone through a difficult time and is wondering: What comes next? |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: Rapid Story Development Jeff Lyons, 2019-09-16 This book offers a unique approach to storytelling, connecting the Enneagram system with classic story principles of character development, plot, and story structure to provide a seven-step methodology to achieve rapid story development. Using the nine core personality styles underlying all human thought, feeling, and action, it provides the tools needed to understand and leverage the Enneagram-Story Connection for writing success. Author Jeff Lyons starts with the basics of the Enneagram system and builds with how to discover and design the critical story structure components of any story, featuring supporting examples of the Enneagram-Story Connection in practice across film, literature and TV. Readers will learn the fundamentals of the Enneagram system and how to utilize it to create multidimensional characters, master premise line development, maintain narrative drive, and create antagonists that are perfectly designed to challenge your protagonist in a way that goes beyond surface action to reveal the dramatic core of any story. Lyons explores the use of the Enneagram as a tool not only for character development, but for story development itself. This is the ideal text for intermediate and advanced level screenwriting and creative writing students, as well as professional screenwriters and novelists looking to get more from their writing process and story structure. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: Beyond the Writers' Workshop Carol Bly, 2001-04-17 An innovative new approach to teaching and writing creative nonfiction from veteran teacher and critically acclaimed author Carol Bly. Teachers and writers everywhere are facing the limits imposed by the prevailing models of teaching: community or MFA “workshops” or, at the high-school level, “peer review.” In Beyond the Writers' Workshop Carol Bly presents an alternative. She believes that workshopping’s tendency to engage in wry scorn and pay exaggerated attention to technical details, causes apprentice writers, consciously or unconsciously, to modify their most passionate work. Inspired by a philosophy of individuality and moral rigor, Bly combines ideas and techniques from social work, psychotherapy, and neuroscience with the traditional teaching of fresh metaphor, salient dialogue, lively pace, and analysis of other literary work in her pioneering new approach. She also includes exercises and examples in an extensive practical appendix. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: True Stories, Well Told Lee Gutkind, Hattie Fletcher, 2014-07-06 Creative nonfiction is the literary equivalent of jazz: it’s a rich mix of flavors, ideas, voices, and techniques—some newly invented, and others as old as writing itself. This collection of 20 gripping, beautifully-written nonfiction narratives is as diverse as the genre Creative Nonfiction magazine has helped popularize. Contributions by Phillip Lopate, Brenda Miller, Carolyn Forche, Toi Derricotte, Lauren Slater and others draw inspiration from everything from healthcare to history, and from monarch butterflies to motherhood. Their stories shed light on how we live. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: Ferne Barbara Henning, 2021-10 Ferne is a time capsule of mid-century Detroit, a city poised to explode. Its sounds, scents, and sights spill forth, as vividly experienced by a vibrant young woman whose life would end too soon. Ferne joyously curates her own life; that's the heart of this book. But we also encounter her through the fervent eyes of her daughter, poet and novelist Barbara Henning, who lyrically fills in and fleshes out the social contours and details of the ghostly presence that haunts these pages. Through her daughter's skilled hands, Ferne comes to life again on these pages, bringing with her glimpses of the city she loved so deeply-- |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: DIY MFA Gabriela Pereira, 2016-07-08 Get the Knowledge Without the College! You are a writer. You dream of sharing your words with the world, and you're willing to put in the hard work to achieve success. You may have even considered earning your MFA, but for whatever reason--tuition costs, the time commitment, or other responsibilities--you've never been able to do it. Or maybe you've been looking for a self-guided approach so you don't have to go back to school. This book is for you. DIY MFA is the do-it-yourself alternative to a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing. By combining the three main components of a traditional MFA--writing, reading, and community--it teaches you how to craft compelling stories, engage your readers, and publish your work. Inside you'll learn how to: • Set customized goals for writing and learning. • Generate ideas on demand. • Outline your book from beginning to end. • Breathe life into your characters. • Master point of view, voice, dialogue, and more. • Read with a writer's eye to emulate the techniques of others. • Network like a pro, get the most out of writing workshops, and submit your work successfully. Writing belongs to everyone--not only those who earn a degree. With DIY MFA, you can take charge of your writing, produce high-quality work, get published, and build a writing career. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: The Natural World of Winnie-the-Pooh Kathryn Aalto, 2015-09-23 Loved “Goodbye Christopher Robin”? Learn more about the real place that inspired the beloved stories. Delve into the home of the world’s most beloved bear! The Natural World of Winnie-the-Pooh explores the magical landscapes where Pooh, Christopher Robin, and their friends live and play. The Hundred Acre Wood—the setting for Winnie-the-Pooh’s adventures—was inspired by Ashdown Forest, a wildlife haven that spans more than 6,000 acres in southeast England. In the pages of this enchanting book you can visit the ancient black walnut tree on the edge of the forest that became Pooh’s house, go deep into the pine trees to find Poohsticks Bridge, and climb up to the top of the enchanted Galleons Lap, where Pooh says goodbye to Christopher Robin. You will discover how Milne's childhood connection with nature and his role as a father influenced his famous stories, and how his close collaboration with illustrator E. H. Shepard brought those stories to life. This charming book also serves as a guide to the plants, animals, and places of the remarkable Ashdown Forest, whether you are visiting in person or from the comfort of your favorite armchair. In a delightful narrative, enriched with Shepard’s original illustrations, hundreds of color photographs, and Milne’s own words, you will rediscover your favorite characters and the magical place they called home. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: Our Sunburnt Country Anika Molesworth, 2021-08-31 Anika Molesworth fell in love with her family's farm, a sheep station near Broken Hill, at an early age. She formed a bond with the land as though it were a member of her family. When the Millennium Drought hit, though, bringing with it heatwaves and duststorms, the future she'd always imagined for herself began to seem impossible. As she learned more about the causes of - and the solutions to - the extreme weather that was killing her land and her livelihood, Anika became fired up and determined to speak out. Talking to farmers and food producers all around the world, she soon realised that there was a way forward that could be both practical and sustainable - if only we can build up the courage to take it. Beautifully written and full of hope, Our Sunburnt Country shows that there is a way to protect our land, our food and our future, and it is within our grasp. Praise for Our Sunburnt Country: 'In Australia our climate debate can be depressing. In the hands of Anika Molesworth it is uplifting and full of hope.' - Craig Reucassel 'Anika Molesworth invites us to imagine a better future. Read this book and be inspired.' - Michael E. Mann 'In a hope-filled, personal tale framed by her family farm in a sun-baked landscape, Anika Molesworth weaves philosophy, science and a poet's eye into a heartwarming tale of how to help heal the planet.' - Matthew Evans 'This is an important, accessible and evocative book written by a farmer and scientist in that most vital of spaces: the future of our Earth. This book can be part of the solution.' - Charles Massy 'A personal journey spurred by climate change in the west of NSW, learning what can be done and why it is worth doing.' - Ross Garnaut |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: Writer's Digest University The Editors of Writer's Digest, 2010-10-08 Everything You need to Write and Sell Your Work This is the ultimate crash course in writing and publishing! Inside you'll find comprehensive instruction, up-to-date market listings, a CD featuring recorded live webinars with industry professionals, an all-access pass to WritersMarket.com, and more. Writer's Digest University is the perfect resource for you, no matter your experience level. This one-stop resource contains: • Quick and comprehensive answers to common questions including: How do I write a successful novel? and How do I know if self-publishing is right for me? • Instruction and examples for formatting and submitting fiction, nonfiction, articles, children's writing, scripts, and verse. • Advanced instruction on business-related issues like marketing and publicity, using social media, freelancing for corporations, keeping finances in order, and setting the right price for your work. • A detailed look at what agents want and how to get one that best fits your needs. • Market listings for publishers and agents open to unsolicited work and new writers, contests and awards, and conferences and workshops. • A CD with recordings of 4 popular WD webinars: How Do I Get My Book Published?, How to Land a Literary Agent, How Writers Can Succeed in the Future of Digital Publishing, and Freelance Basics.* • A scratch-off code that gives you a one-year subscription to WritersMarket.com and a 20% discount on the WritersDigestUniversity.com course of your choice.* Get started now with everything you need to build a thriving writing career. Whether you're starting from scratch or have a bit of experience, you'll find the tools you need for success. *PLEASE NOTE: CDs and one-year subscription are NOT included with the ebook version of this title. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: Behind the Beautiful Forevers Katherine Boo, 2012-02-07 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY “Inspiring . . . extraordinary . . . [Katherine Boo] shows us how people in the most desperate circumstances can find the resilience to hang on to their humanity. Just as important, she makes us care.”—People “A tour de force of social justice reportage and a literary masterpiece.”—Judges, PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times • The Washington Post • O: The Oprah Magazine • USA Today • New York • The Miami Herald • San Francisco Chronicle • Newsday In this breathtaking book by Pulitzer Prize winner Katherine Boo, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human through the dramatic story of families striving toward a better life in Annawadi, a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport. As India starts to prosper, the residents of Annawadi are electric with hope. Abdul, an enterprising teenager, sees “a fortune beyond counting” in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Meanwhile Asha, a woman of formidable ambition, has identified a shadier route to the middle class. With a little luck, her beautiful daughter, Annawadi’s “most-everything girl,” might become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest children, like the young thief Kalu, feel themselves inching closer to their dreams. But then Abdul is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power, and economic envy turn brutal. With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects people to one another in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, based on years of uncompromising reporting, carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first century’s hidden worlds—and into the hearts of families impossible to forget. WINNER OF: The PEN Nonfiction Award • The Los Angeles Times Book Prize • The American Academy of Arts and Letters Award • The New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker • People • Entertainment Weekly • The Wall Street Journal • The Boston Globe • The Economist • Financial Times • Foreign Policy • The Seattle Times • The Nation • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • The Denver Post • Minneapolis Star Tribune • The Week • Kansas City Star • Slate • Publishers Weekly |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: A Little Life Hanya Yanagihara, 2016-01-26 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: In Cold Blood Truman Capote, 2013-02-19 Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time From the Modern Library’s new set of beautifully repackaged hardcover classics by Truman Capote—also available are Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Other Voices, Other Rooms (in one volume), Portraits and Observations, and The Complete Stories Truman Capote’s masterpiece, In Cold Blood, created a sensation when it was first published, serially, in The New Yorker in 1965. The intensively researched, atmospheric narrative of the lives of the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas, and of the two men, Richard Eugene Hickock and Perry Edward Smith, who brutally killed them on the night of November 15, 1959, is the seminal work of the “new journalism.” Perry Smith is one of the great dark characters of American literature, full of contradictory emotions. “I thought he was a very nice gentleman,” he says of Herb Clutter. “Soft-spoken. I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat.” Told in chapters that alternate between the Clutter household and the approach of Smith and Hickock in their black Chevrolet, then between the investigation of the case and the killers’ flight, Capote’s account is so detailed that the reader comes to feel almost like a participant in the events. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: The Scribe Method Tucker Max, Zach Obront, 2021-04-15 Ready to write your book? So why haven’t you done it yet? If you’re like most nonfiction authors, fears are holding you back. Sound familiar? Is my idea good enough? How do I structure a book? What exactly are the steps to write it? How do I stay motivated? What if I actually finish it, and it’s bad? Worst of all: what if I publish it, and no one cares? How do I know if I’m even doing the right things? The truth is, writing a book can be scary and overwhelming—but it doesn’t have to be. There’s a way to know you’re on the right path and taking the right steps. How? By using a method that’s been validated with thousands of other Authors just like you. In fact, it’s the same exact process used to produce dozens of big bestsellers–including David Goggins’s Can’t Hurt Me, Tiffany Haddish’s The Last Black Unicorn, and Joey Coleman’s Never Lose a Customer Again. The Scribe Method is the tested and proven process that will help you navigate the entire book-writing process from start to finish–the right way. Written by 4x New York Times Bestselling Author Tucker Max and publishing expert Zach Obront, you’ll learn the step-by-step method that has helped over 1,500 authors write and publish their books. Now a Wall Street Journal Bestseller itself, The Scribe Method is specifically designed for business leaders, personal development gurus, entrepreneurs, and any expert in their field who has accumulated years of hard-won knowledge and wants to put it out into the world. Forget the rest of the books written by pretenders. This is the ultimate resource for anyone who wants to professionally write a great nonfiction book. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: Tell It Slant, Third Edition Brenda Miller, Suzanne Paola, 2019-08-09 Publisher's Note: Products purchased from Third Party sellers are not guaranteed by the publisher for quality, authenticity, or access to any online entitlements included with the product. Two award-winning authors reveal everything you need to know to develop your own distinctive voice and craft compelling, creative nonfiction “Tell all the Truth but tell it Slant.” —Emily Dickinson With these words, Dickinson offers sound advice for nonfiction writers: Tell the truth but become more than mere transcribers of daily life. Since 2003, Tell It Slant has set the standard for creative nonfiction instruction, showing writers how to move beyond mere facts and, instead, make the most of their own “slant” on the world. This revised and updated third edition offers: • New and expanded chapters on writing about identity, maintaining a productive work/life balance, and navigating the publishing industry • An anthology with diverse pieces that range from traditional essay to the graphic memoir • Expanded discussion of contemporary and emerging literary forms • New “Try It” writing exercises throughout the book Whether planning a course or learning on your own, Tell It Slant provides everything you need to know to develop a distinctive voice and to craft compelling creative nonfiction. This book provides the basis for a complete education in nonfiction writing, wherever your classroom might be. “Tell It Slant is a valuable and comprehensive resource for nonfiction writers, filled with exhilarating examples, powerful exercises, and pure inspiration. Miller and Paola are gifted teachers and writers with endless wisdom to share and a lovely way of sharing it with struggling writers at every level.” —Dinty W. Moore, author of The Mindful Writer: Noble Truths of the Writing Life |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: Breathing Life Into Your Characters Rachel Ballon, 2009-03-01 Create Convincing Characters That Readers—and Editors—Can't Resist! It's the question that eternally plagues all good writers: How can you describe the thoughts and feelings of characters who have backgrounds or psychological aberrations with which you have no personal experience? How can you describe the feelings of a drug addict if you've never been one? How can you write about being a prisoner if you've never been to jail? You can do all the research you want, but the question still remains: How do you convincingly portray characters if you've never lived in their skin? In Breathing Life Into Your Characters, writing consultant and professional psychotherapist Rachel Ballon, Ph. D., shows you how to get in touch with the thoughts and feelings necessary to truly understand your characters—no matter what their background or life experiences. She'll show you how to: • Develop a psychological profile for every character • Turn archetypes into conflicted characters • Think like a criminal to convincingly write one • Reveal personalities through the use of nonverbal communication In addition, you'll learn how to effectively use Ballon's Method Writing system—taught previously only in her writing workshops—to explore your own feelings, memories, and emotions to create characters of astonishing depth and complexity! |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: Writing Fiction Gotham Writers' Workshop, 2008 Language, literature and biography. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy Orson Scott Card, 1990-07-15 Defines both genres, tells how to write a successful story, and where to find markets to get published. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: Mordew Alex Pheby, 2021-09-14 Alex Pheby's Mordew launches an astonishingly inventive epic fantasy trilogy. God is dead, his corpse hidden in the catacombs beneath Mordew. In the slums of the sea-battered city, a young boy called Nathan Treeves lives with his parents, eking out a meagre existence by picking treasures from the Living Mud and the half-formed, short-lived creatures it spawns. Until one day his desperate mother sells him to the mysterious Master of Mordew. The Master derives his magical power from feeding on the corpse of God. But Nathan, despite his fear and lowly station, has his own strength—and it is greater than the Master has ever known. Great enough to destroy everything the Master has built. If only Nathan can discover how to use it. So it is that the Master begins to scheme against him—and Nathan has to fight his way through the betrayals, secrets, and vendettas of the city where God was murdered, and darkness reigns. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: Splendid Anatomies Allison Wyss, 2022-03-15 The very peculiar and human characters of SPLENDID ANATOMIES (short stories) by Allison Wyss live in, on, and far beyond the periphery, learning to love themselves as they claim and reclaim their bodies. They get tattoos, have radical operations, wear prostheses, even dig bloody veins from their legs. They hack themselves to pieces. But then they stitch themselves back up--in ways that are both glorious and painful. These stories, set in the lands of fables, in other universes, and even the Midwest, are grotesque and gory, menacing and magical, sad, funny, and true celebrations of what it means to live. Fiction. Short Stories. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: My Mother's Daughter Perdita Felicien, 2022-03-29 NATIONAL BESTSELLER A phenomenal, human story. . . . I could not put this book down. —CLARA HUGHES An instant national bestseller, this raw and affecting memoir is the story of a mother and daughter who beat the odds together. Decades before Perdita Felicien became a World Champion hurdler running the biggest race of her life at the 2004 Olympics, she carried more than a nation's hopes—she carried her mother Catherine's dreams. In 1974, Catherine is determined and tenacious, but she's also pregnant with her second child and just scraping by in St. Lucia. When she meets a wealthy white Canadian family vacationing on the island, she knows it's her chance. They ask her to come to Canada to be their nanny—and she accepts. This was the beginning of Catherine's new life: a life of opportunity, but also suffering. Within a few years, she would find herself pregnant a third time—this time in her new country with no family to support her, and this time, with Perdita. Together, in the years to come, mother and daughter would experience racism, domestic abuse, and even homelessness, but Catherine's will would always pull them through. As Perdita grew and began to discover her preternatural athletic gifts, she was edged onward by her mother's love, grit, and faith. Facing literal and figurative hurdles, she learned to leap and pick herself back up when she stumbled. This book is a daughter's memoir—a book about the power of a parent's love to transform their child's life. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction Lee Gutkind, 2005 Creative nonfiction, also known as narrative nonfiction, liberated journalism by inviting writers to dramatize, interpret, speculate, and even re-create their subjects. Lee Gutkind collects twenty-five essays that flourished on this new ground, all originally published in the journal he founded, Creative Nonfiction, now celebrating its tenth anniversary. Lauren Slater is a therapist in the institution where she was once a patient. John Edgar Wideman reacts passionately to the unjust murder of Emmett Till. Charles Simic tells of wild nights with Uncle Boris. John McPhee creates a rare, personal, album quilt. Terry Tempest Williams speaks on the decline of the prairie dog. Madison Smartt Bell invades Haiti. Many of the writers are crossing genres'rom poetry and fiction to nonfiction'ymbolic of Creative Nonfiction's scope and popularity.A cross section of the famous and those bound to become so, this collection is a riveting experience highlighting the expanding importance of this dramatic and exciting new genre. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: You Can't Make This Stuff Up Lee Gutkind, 2012-07-03 From the godfather behind creative nonfiction (Vanity Fair) comes this indispensable how-to for nonfiction writers of all levels and genres, reminiscent of Stephen King's fiction handbook On Writing (Kirkus). Whether you're writing a rags-to-riches tell-all memoir or literary journalism, telling true stories well is hard work. In You Can't Make This Stuff Up, Lee Gutkind, the go-to expert for all things creative nonfiction, offers his unvarnished wisdom to help you craft the best writing possible. Frank, to-the-point, and always entertaining, Gutkind describes and illustrates every aspect of the genre. Invaluable tools and exercises illuminate key steps, from defining a concept and establishing a writing process to the final product. Offering new ways of understanding the genre, this practical guidebook will help you thoroughly expand and stylize your work. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: The Art of the Short Story Dana Gioia, R. S. Gwynn, 2005 52 great authors, their best short fiction, and their insights on writing--Cover. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: Bleaker House Nell Stevens, 2017-03-14 When she was twenty-seven, Nell Stevens—a lifelong aspiring novelist—won an all-expenses-paid fellowship to go anywhere in the world to write. Would she choose a glittering metropolis, a romantic village, an exotic paradise? Not exactly. Nell picked Bleaker Island, a snowy, windswept pile of rock in the Falklands. Other than sheep, penguins, paranoia, and the weather, there aren’t many distractions, but as Nell soon discovers, total isolation and 1,085 calories a day are far from ideal conditions for literary production. With deft humor, this memoir traces her island days and slowly reveals the life and people she has left behind in pursuit of her writing. It seems that there is nowhere she can run—an island or the pages of her notebook—to escape the big questions of love, art, and, ambition. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: There Was A Fire Here Risa Nye, 2016-05-17 Less than a month before her 40th birthday, a devastating firestorm destroys Risa Nye’s home and neighborhood in Oakland, California. Already mourning the perceived loss of her youth, she now must face the loss of all tangible reminders of who she was before. There Was a Fire Here is the story of how Nye adjusts to the turning point that will forever mark the “before and after” in her life—and a chronicle of her attempts to honor the lost symbols of her past even as she struggles to create a new home for her family. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: Bird by Bird Anne Lamott, 2007-12-18 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An essential volume for generations of writers young and old. The twenty-fifth anniversary edition of this modern classic will continue to spark creative minds for years to come. Anne Lamott is a warm, generous, and hilarious guide through the writer’s world and its treacherous swamps (Los Angeles Times). “Superb writing advice…. Hilarious, helpful, and provocative.” —The New York Times Book Review For a quarter century, more than a million readers—scribes and scribblers of all ages and abilities—have been inspired by Anne Lamott’s hilarious, big-hearted, homespun advice. Advice that begins with the simple words of wisdom passed down from Anne’s father—also a writer—in the iconic passage that gives the book its title: “Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’” |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts Matt Bell, 2022-03-08 They say writing is rewriting. So why does the second part get such short shrift? Refuse To Be Done will guide you through every step of the novel writing process, from getting started on those first pages to the last tips for making your final draft even tighter and stronger. From lauded writer and teacher Matt Bell, Refuse to Be Done is encouraging and intensely practical, focusing always on specific rewriting tasks, techniques, and activities for every stage of the process. You won’t find bromides here about the “the writing Muse.” Instead, Bell breaks down the writing process in three sections. In the first, Bell shares a bounty of tactics, all meant to push you through the initial conception and get words on the page. The second focuses on reworking the narrative through outlining, modeling, and rewriting. The third and final section offers a layered approach to polishing through a checklist of operations, breaking the daunting project of final revisions into many small, achievable tasks. Whether you are a first time novelist or a veteran writer, you will find an abundance of strategies here to help motivate you and shake up your revision process, allowing you to approach your work, day after day and month after month, with fresh eyes and sharp new tools. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: Cutting Teeth Julia Fierro, 2014-05-13 One of the most anticipated debut novels of 2014, Cutting Teeth takes place one late-summer weekend as a group of thirty-something couples gather at a shabby beach house on Long Island, their young children in tow. Nicole, the hostess, struggles to keep her OCD behaviors unnoticed. Stay-at-home dad Rip grapples with the reality that his careerist wife will likely deny him a second child, forcing him to disrupt the life he loves. Allie, one half of a two-mom family, can't stop imagining ditching her wife and kids in favor of her art. Tiffany, comfortable with her amazing body but not so comfortable in the upper-middle class world the other characters were born into, flirts dangerously, and spars with her best friend Leigh, a blue blood secretly facing financial ruin and dependent on the magical Tibetan nanny everyone else covets. Throughout the weekend, conflicts intensify and painful truths surface. Friendships and alliances crack, forcing the house party to confront a new order.Cutting Teeth is about the complex dilemmas of early midlife—the vicissitudes of friendship, of romantic and familial love, and of sex. It's about class tension, status hunger, and the unease of being in possession of life's greatest bounty while still wondering, is this as good as it gets? And, perhaps most of all, Julia Fierro's warm and unpretentious debut explores the all-consuming love we feel for those we need most, and the sacrifice and compromise that underpins that love. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: Elements of Fiction Writing - Characters & Viewpoint Orson Scott Card, 1999-03-15 Vivid and memorable characters aren't born: they have to be made. &break;&break;This book is a set of tools: literary crowbars, chisels, mallets, pliers and tongs. Use them to pry, chip, yank and sift good characters out of the place where they live in your memory, your imagination and your soul. &break;&break;Award-winning author Orson Scott Card explains in depth the techniques of inventing, developing and presenting characters, plus handling viewpoint in novels and short stories. With specific examples, he spells out your narrative options–the choices you'll make in creating fictional people so real that readers will feel they know them like members of their own families. &break;&break;You'll learn how to: &break; draw the characters from a variety of sources, including a story's basic idea, real life–even a character's social circumstances&break; make characters show who they are by the things they do and say, and by their individual style&break; develop characters readers will love–or love to hate&break; distinguish among major characters, minor characters and walk-ons, and develop each one appropriately&break; choose the most effective viewpoint to reveal the characters and move the storytelling&break; decide how deeply you should explore your characters' thoughts, emotions and attitudes |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: Writeriffic Eva Shaw, Matt Shaw, 2001-10 Covers topics that include increasing self-confidence, staying motivated, understanding how rituals can help keep one writing, and reading books to improve writing. This work provides advice and tips for overcoming writer's block and the fear of beginning to write. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: The Art of Subtext Charles Baxter, 2013-07-16 Charles Baxter inaugurates The Art of, a new series on the craft of writing, with the wit and intelligence he brought to his celebrated book Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction. Fiction writer and essayist Charles Baxter's The Art of Subtext: Beyond Plot discusses and illustrates the hidden subtextual overtones and undertones in fictional works haunted by the unspoken, the suppressed, and the secreted. Using an array of examples from Melville and Dostoyevsky to contemporary writers Paula Fox, Edward P. Jones, and Lorrie Moore, Baxter explains how fiction writers create those visible and invisible details, how what is displayed evokes what is not displayed. The Art of Subtext is part of The Art of series, a new line of books by important authors on the craft of writing, edited by Charles Baxter. Each book examines a singular, but often assumed or neglected, issue facing the contemporary writer of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. The Art of series means to restore the art of criticism while illuminating the art of writing. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: The Fourth Genre Robert L. Root, Michael Steinberg, 2012 This best-selling anthology is a comprehensive and indispensable introduction to the way creative nonfiction is written today. The Fourth Genre offers the most comprehensive, teachable, and current introduction available today to the cutting-edge, evolving genre of creative nonfiction. While acknowledging the literary impulse of nonfiction to be a fourth genre equivalent to poetry, fiction, and drama, this text focuses on subgenres of the nonfiction form, including memoir, nature writing, personal essays, literary journalism, cultural criticism, and travel writing. This anthology was the first to draw on the common ground of the practicing writer and the practical scholar and to make the pedagogical connections between creative writing practice and composition theory, bridging some of the gaps between the teaching of composition, creative writing, and literature in English departments. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: Writing True Sondra Perl, Mimi Schwartz, 2014 This book shows writers of all ages how to find and develop nonfiction topics that matter to them�in ways that make readers care too. It emphasizes writing for discovery, not just writing what one knows. It emphasizes a strong authorial presence (voice) and a convincing point of view. Most important, it not only tells but also shows how writing true involves the poet's attention to language, the fiction writer's power of storytellling, the journalist's pursuit of fact, and the scholar's reliance on research. The first part of the book offers ten practical chapters from getting started to turning first ideas into finished work. Topics include: The Power of the Notebook, Ten Ways to a Draft, Taking Shape, Finding Voice, Twenty Ways to Talk About Writing, The Craft of Revision, The Role of Research, The Ethics of Creative Nonfiction, Workshopping a Draft, and Exploring New Media. The second part of the book is an anthology of the best nonfiction writing for aspiring writers to read and study in order to write with creativity, integrity, and authenticity. Organized by form, they include Memoir, Personal Essay, Portrait, Essay of Place, Narrative Journalism, and Short Shorts. Selections represent a variety of experience from classic masters (E.B.White and George Orwell) to major contemporary writers (such as Alice Walker, Stephen Dunn, and Scott Russell Sanders) to up and coming writers (such as E.J. Levy and Amy Butcher). The anthology also includes Stories of Craft, with five prominent writers, including Patricia Hampl and Sue Miller, describing the challenges and rewards of writing engaging nonfiction. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: The Nonfiction Book Publishing Plan Stephanie Chandler, Karl W. Palachuk, 2018-09-14 Are you ready to turn your passion into a profitable business? The Nonfiction Book Publishing Plan is loaded with proven strategies, real-world examples, and fascinating interviews with successful authors who started from scratch just like you. In this content-rich book, you will learn how to: Identify profit opportunities from and around your book Set up a legitimate and professional author-publisher business Write your manuscript faster than you thought possible Avoid mistakes new authors make and get your book published the right way Enlist beta readers, get endorsements from well-known authors, and generate book reviews Launch your book into the world with as much buzz as possible As nonfiction authors, publishers, and internet entrepreneurs with over three decades of combined industry experience, we understand your unique goals and challenges. We also have the experience to show you how to produce your nonfiction book in the most professional way possible, while you turn your passion into a profitable business. Whether you're writing self-development, business, memoir, how-to, spiritual, narrative, or other nonfiction book, this authoritative guide by experienced industry professionals will provide you with the solutions you need to achieve your publishing goals. |
| creative nonfiction writing courses: When Magic Calls Caitlin Berve, 2020-04 Once upon a time a jealous girl stole a magical artifact from a museum to eliminate her competition. In the Rocky Mountains, a man studies a woman raised by wolves, but soon watching won't be enough. Tonight, you might find yourself in a fairy tale of your own. Will you answer magic's call? |
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CREATIVE Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
The meaning of CREATIVE is marked by the ability or power to create : given to creating. How to use creative in a sentence.
CREATIVE | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary
CREATIVE meaning: 1. producing or using original and unusual ideas: 2. describing or explaining things in unusual…. Learn more.
CREATIVE definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary
A creative person has the ability to invent and develop original ideas, especially in the arts.
Creative - definition of creative by The Free Dictionary
Define creative. creative synonyms, creative pronunciation, creative translation, English dictionary definition of creative. adj. 1. Having the ability or power to create: Human beings are creative …
Creativity | Definition, Types, Skills, & Facts | Britannica
May 27, 2025 · Creativity, the ability to make or otherwise bring into existence something new, whether a new solution to a problem, a new method or device, or a new artistic object or form. …
creative | meaning of creative in Longman Dictionary of …
creative meaning, definition, what is creative: involving the use of imagination to prod...: Learn more.
Creative Definition & Meaning - YourDictionary
He was not a great original thinker; he lacked the creative faculty and the creative impulse. Polycarp had no creative genius. The creative thought of the middle ages is clerical thought.
How to Be More Creative: 13 Proven Methods – Mendi.io
4 days ago · So, if this is your goal, we have the answer! In this article, we'll share 13 proven tips on how to be more creative (with real-life examples to inspire you!). Key Takeaways. Creativity …
CREATIVE Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com
having the power to bring something new into being, as a creature, or to evolve something original from one’s own thought or imagination, as a work of art or invention: In the mythologies of the …
Creative Labs (United States) | Sound Blaster Sound Cards, Super …
Shop online at creative.com for wireless speakers and computer soundbars, Bluetooth headphones, Sound Blaster sound cards, gaming headsets. Free shipping on orders over $35.
CREATIVE Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
The meaning of CREATIVE is marked by the ability or power to create : given to creating. How to use creative in a sentence.
CREATIVE | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary
CREATIVE meaning: 1. producing or using original and unusual ideas: 2. describing or explaining things in unusual…. Learn more.
CREATIVE definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary
A creative person has the ability to invent and develop original ideas, especially in the arts.
Creative - definition of creative by The Free Dictionary
Define creative. creative synonyms, creative pronunciation, creative translation, English dictionary definition of creative. adj. 1. Having the ability or power to create: Human beings are creative …
Creativity | Definition, Types, Skills, & Facts | Britannica
May 27, 2025 · Creativity, the ability to make or otherwise bring into existence something new, whether a new solution to a problem, a new method or device, or a new artistic object or form. …
creative | meaning of creative in Longman Dictionary of …
creative meaning, definition, what is creative: involving the use of imagination to prod...: Learn more.
Creative Definition & Meaning - YourDictionary
He was not a great original thinker; he lacked the creative faculty and the creative impulse. Polycarp had no creative genius. The creative thought of the middle ages is clerical thought.
How to Be More Creative: 13 Proven Methods – Mendi.io
4 days ago · So, if this is your goal, we have the answer! In this article, we'll share 13 proven tips on how to be more creative (with real-life examples to inspire you!). Key Takeaways. Creativity …
CREATIVE Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com
having the power to bring something new into being, as a creature, or to evolve something original from one’s own thought or imagination, as a work of art or invention: In the mythologies of the …
