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Tell It Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonfiction
Demonstrating the range of creative nonfiction from memoir to travel writing to the lyric essay, "Tell It Slant" combines practical guidance with an illustrative anthology of 34 essays from Margaret Atwood, David Sedaris, E.B. White, Virginia Woolf, and others. The result is a stimulating collection of writing and activities that makes it easy and enjoyable for students to...more
Paperback, 464 pages
Published
August 1st 2003
by McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Langua
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This was always been my favorite creative nonfiction textbook because it is both a guide to writing and an anthology. The chapters on craft are well organized and well illustrated, and the reading selections are quite good. Unfortunately, in 2004, the textbook industry made the editors of this wonderful 2003 edition create a newer edition, and in this newer 2004 edition, most of the readings are gone. The 2004 edition is just a slim volume, a shadow of this former glorious edition, and I've neve...more
Writing something—let alone publishing it!—can seem like an impossible goal. Tell It Slant approaches writing creative nonfiction in a way I would call…comforting. Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola are both writing teachers and accomplished writers themselves. They offer not only advice but their own experience with writing, their own creative texts, and also their own insights in a way that makes successful writing seem within reach. They emphasize the insights anyone can develop from one’s own...more
This book has something for writers at every level. Some sections - like the one that describes different types of creative nonfiction - were very basic, while others - like the one about honing craft - were more advanced. I found a lot of great stuff to share with my students, and not just about creative nonfiction. Must of the advice in this book can be applied to any genre. The writing itself is really a pleasure to read, and I can tell that Brenda and Suzanne are masters of their craft. I al...more
I'm glad I read this book, although I don't know how useful it would be to teach a very beginning writer. It's written for someone new to the genre of creative nonfiction, but often speaks in a register that's a little too advanced, I felt. The structure of it is a little strange and it wasn't always as straightforward or as clear as I would have liked, but there is still tons of helpful ideas I found and I was very glad to have read it. It includes an anthology of creative nonfiction essays of...more
This book is an introduction to writing creative nonfiction. It introduces the reader to the subgenres of creative nonfiction, gives ideas for subjects to write about, and gives advice for the writing and revising processes. Also, after every chapter, there is a selection of writing prompts, for the readers to put into practice what they have learned.
If you're trying to learn how to write creative nonfiction (or if you want to know what creative nonfiction is all about), then I think this is a g...more
If you're trying to learn how to write creative nonfiction (or if you want to know what creative nonfiction is all about), then I think this is a g...more
I don't think I'm a self-help-book kind of person. While I enjoyed each section of this book for a little while, I soon lost interest and had to struggle through to the next topic shift. In the first section, the authors concentrate on the 'what' of creative non-fiction. I felt that too much of what the authors said was obvious and I wasn't inspired by the prompts. I enjoyed the second section of the book best, the bit where they talked about the 'how' of writing creative non-fiction. As with se...more
I enjoyed the power of this book. I was in a creative writing class where this book was used and fell in love with it automatically. It offers many ways to get started on your writing...and sometimes that's all I need is a starting place. It asks you to dig deep within yourself and drag out memories which maybe you thought you'd keep hidden. I loved the class and the writing that came from it!
I used this book in my nonfiction classes at Wilkes. Let me say I'm still using this book three years later to refer to because the information in Tell It Slant must always be at my fingertips to refer to, to ingest, to get to penetrate in my head. Nonfiction is such a special genre that I want to give my readers my best writing. This book helps me reveal the creativity locked up inside my brain.
This book was used as a text for a Creative Non-Fiction class I audited last year. This book will remain on my shelves for as long as I need advice on my own forays in to memoir and travelogue writing...OK for as long as I live because you never know when you will need to affirm or revise your creative non-fiction writing style and techniques!
Tell It Slant is really the best of the books available on creative non-fiction. Thoughtful, thorough and useful (a rare combination) and unhampered by the authors' egos (also unusual and very welcome)- it's the place to start if cnf is new for you, and it's also the book that will remind you what you set out to do when you get lost along the way.
A fine quote: ""at the core of the essay is the supposition that there is a certain unity to human experience." - Yes!
"Every man has within himself the entire human condition."...These two poles --intimacy of voice and universality of significance--go to the heart of the personal essay tradition. The essay speaks confidingly, as a whispering friend, and these whispers must be made meaningful in a larger context--capturing a piece of larger human experience within the amber of your own." p 94.
Is...more
"Every man has within himself the entire human condition."...These two poles --intimacy of voice and universality of significance--go to the heart of the personal essay tradition. The essay speaks confidingly, as a whispering friend, and these whispers must be made meaningful in a larger context--capturing a piece of larger human experience within the amber of your own." p 94.
Is...more
In spite of a rather amateurish page design, this is a thoughtfully designed book. I'm pulling bits and pieces of it for the 300-level Personal Essay class I'm teaching this spring.
i wish i could give a 3. rating, because that's about where this book would land for me. better than good, but not really great. (5 stars is reserved for blow-your-socks-off amazing)
Really enjoyed this book, which is the text for a Creative Nonfiction class I'm taking this semester. Be sure to get the 2nd Edition.
A fine book for anyone wanting to write lyric essays or any essay at all.
This is for you, Maria.
Quite useful!
Sep 20, 2009
Wafaa
added it
i just like it
I find myself recommending Tell It Slant to anyone struggling with structure, and I consult it all the time myself. This book does a great job detailing different structures, and then it provides examples of stories that implement them in the second half of the book. Practical writing guide that you will likely fill with sticky-notes.
A solid overview of the writing of creative nonfiction that worked really well as a teaching text; it's full of writing prompts and ideas, and it leaves lots of room for students, teachers, and writers to stretch out and find their places within the genre. Prescriptive enough for clarity but not so prescriptive that it's constricting. It's the best introduction to writing creative nonfiction that I've found; my students responded to it with enthusiasm and interest.
I teach out of this book, mostly because we're required to teach from something and I don't like the 4th Genre anthology. Even with 436 page version (I couldn't find it here) it's still surprisingly compact and the "try it" exercises are sometimes okay. I also like the pictures of the authors at the start of each there essays. It's the least dreary of a dreary bunch. Why can't some one publish an instructive text that is actually enjoyable to flip through?
Excellent reference book for writing a good memoir.
I loved this book so much that I'm going to hunt down the first edition, which has twice as many pages, and read that too.
Was it my favorite CNF writing book? No. But I thought it was worthwhile and I'm glad I bought it.
A great book for people who are either interested in writing creative nonfiction or teaching the genre. I teach from it because it helps me define the genre with concrete examples and exercises for the students. There is a longer version that includes essays from published authors.
One of the best books on writing I've ever read - and I've read A LOT. Right up there with Stephen King's "On Writing" and Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird." Really. Go. Read. Now.
Okay, this is one of the texts for my creative writing nonfiction class. But it's good. Great anthology in the back. A really great mix of essays from a wide range of writers.
This book explains how to write about your life in a way that is creative and people want to read. Has helped to inspire me and I will keep it as a reference book.
I have a feeling I will be referring back to this book in the future, but the initial read-through wasn't that inspirational for me. It was just okay.
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Brenda Miller is the author of Season of the Body and co-author of Tell it Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonfiction Her newest collection of essays, Blessing of the Animals, is forthcoming from Eastern Washington University Press. Her work has received five Pushcart Prizes and has been published in many journals, including Fourth Genre, Creative Nonfiction, The Sun, Utne Reader, The Georgia...more
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May 27, 2009 03:01pm