Creating Nonfiction: Twenty Essays and Interviews with the Writers

by Jen Hirt (editor), Erin Murphy (Editor)

With a title that suggests both the genre and the process of composing it, "Creating Nonfiction" is a collection of essays and interviews that aims to open readers and writers eyes to the formal possibilities of creative nonfiction. Included are memoirs, personal essays, literary journalism, graphic essays, and lyric essays, and the content is equally diverse, with topics ranging from childbirth to child labor, from dandelions to domestic violence.
Whereas most anthologies leave readers to speculate about the evolution of each contribution, "Creating Nonfiction" provides companion interviews that offer insight into the inspiration, drafting, and revision process that produced the essays. Cheryl Strayed talks about how working as a reporter for her hometown newspaper influenced her later writings. Dinty W. Moore reflects on the delicate balance between observation and judgment when writing about subjects whose values differ from your own. Kristen Radtke explains how she decides between textual and visual images when creating a graphic essay. Although they offer an eclectic mix of voices and styles, what these essays all have in common is that ultimately, as contributor Faith Adiele observes, truth becomes art. "

254 pages, Paperback

Published May 1, 2016

About the author

Jen Hirt is the author of the memoir UNDER GLASS: THE GIRL WITH A THOUSAND CHRISTMAS TREES (Ringtaw Books/University of Akron Press 2010), which won the Drake University Emerging Writer Prize for 2011; the poetry chapbook TOO MANY QUESTIONS ABOUT STRAWBERRIES (Tolsun Books 2018); and the essay collection HEAR ME OHIO (University of Akron Press 2020). Other award-winning writing includes "Students of the Route" (Terrain contest finalist); "Glow in the Dark" (Gabehart Prize); and "Lores of Last Unicorns" (Pushcart Prize). She has had four essays make the list of notable essays in the Best America Essays series. She is the co-editor of CREATING NONFICTION: TWENTY ESSAYS AND INTERVIEWS WITH THE WRITERS (SUNY 2016) , which won "Gold" at the Foreword INDIE Book of the Year Awards in the anthology category. She is also the co-editor of KEPT SECRET: THE HALF-TRUTH IN NONFICTION (MSU 2017). Her creative work has been published in journals such The Gettysburg Review, The Colorado Review, TriQuarterly, Salamander, and Redivider. She holds a B.A. in English from Hiram College, an M.A. in English from Iowa State University, and an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Idaho. She lives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and teaches at Penn State Harrisburg.

Reviews

[Ellen Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Best essays:
“Footnotes & endnotes”; Michael Martone
“Apocalypse, darling”; Barrie Jean Borich
“Birth Geographic”; Aimee Nezhukumatathil
“How to make sense of the postcolonial nation-state: a definition essay using material lifted almost entirely from the internet as annotated by the author, herself a Nigerian American”; Faith Adiele
“YouTube’s winged chariot: on time, memory, and internet video”; Jeffrey Hammond

Liked the interviews a lot