Contents

Cover

Title Page

Contributing Writers

Private and Public:

The Range and Scope

of Creative Nonfiction

by Lee Gutkind

The ABCs of Creative Nonfiction

Acknowledgment of Sources

Backdoor Access

Checkbook Journalism

Composite Characters

Compression

Defamation and Libel

Evolution of the Genre

Facts

Fact-checking

Family Members as Characters

Forewords and Afterwords

Frame

Getting Inside Characters’ Heads

Guiding the Reader

Gunkholing: Finding a Story

History into Nonfiction Narrative

The “I”

Immersion

Influencing Readers

Keeping It Brief

Legal Responsibilities of Publishers

The Lyric Essay

The Memoir Craze

Metaphor

Montage Writing

The Narrative Impulse

Navel-gazing

Point of View

Psychoanalyzing Characters

Quotation Marks

Reconstruction of Events

Reflection

The Roots of Memoir

Scenes

Subjectivity

Tape Recording

Truth

Use of Imagination

The Vagaries of Memory

Whose Story to Tell

Writers’ Responsibility to Subjects

About the Contributors

Acknowledgments

Praise for

Copyright

Also Edited by Lee Gutkind