I am one of those who found your writing through that office hours. Before you said something, I hadn’t even seen the omission (and no poetry category, wow). Now I can’t unsee it.
But I think we’ll get there. Thanks for highlighting the issue and those of us who want to be in our stories.
I'll bet your class was amazing, Lev. I'm so glad we think alike on this. I struggled with that first piece in order to get my own thoughts down just right. I had been doing CNF for a long time without ever thinking about how I might describe it. It truly deserves a category all its own.
Sitting around a table in comfortable seats sharing refreshments shouldn't be the enlightened way of teaching anymore. That whole classroom vibe, with rows of seats and the teacher up front should have been left behind in elementary school.
I've taken classes like you describe and I get so much more out of it, mainly because we all feel less like students and more like participants. Good going!
And the class size was just right: we limited it to 12 and every seat was taken. On the other hand, when I taught CW at MSU, they actually tried to change CW classes from 25 (too many already) to 30.
Yes, it probably should. Small children get much more out of a book by sitting in a circle on the floor as it's being read than they do when they're sitting upright at a desk with the teacher clearly being the teacher up front.
I couldn’t agree more if I tried. Really, really hard! I’d go one step further and have as much time for young pupils to explore the outside world as much as possible. In an attempt at restoring, in part, human beings disconnect from nature. There’s time enough to get through a curriculum designed to instil education by asking young minds to memorise all that’s put before them. Here in Ireland there are at least half a dozen subjects at primary level, which jumps to 8 or 9 upon entering secondary school. The amount of text books needed is huge. Not too mention the weight of the bags carried each day. It’s a ridiculous system. Far too many subjects and plenty of places to make yourself invisible in classes that would average about 35 in number. One in four irish people have difficulty with reading and writing, with a large number completely illiterate. Rant over! Sorry but it hits a raw nerve with me every time.
Nov 18, 2023·edited Nov 19, 2023Liked by Ramona Grigg
I have always thought that CNF was a broader term that included personal essays. And that’s how it’s defined by one of the major lit mags publishing CNF: https://creativenonfiction.org/what-is-cnf/
That's a keeper! Thanks so much, Lev. I could have pulled many quotes but this one will do for now:
"Writers had been writing nonfiction that was creative and imaginative for centuries, familiar and famous names you will recognize–Daniel Defoe, George Orwell, Charles Dickens and many others—for centuries. The change, the adjustment that it precipitated, had much more to do with the approach or attitude toward nonfiction rather than its content and, of course, the idea that creative and nonfiction were not mutually exclusive. That change in approach and attitude is ongoing. The scope of nonfiction today, most especially what we call creative nonfiction, continues to evolve, informing and inspiring readers with stories that are true, compelling, revealing and always surprising."
I like personal essay as a sub-genre of Creative Nonfiction, but it doesn't tell the whole story. It's true they might all read like essays but they're not all personal. I could write an entire piece from my own POV without once bringing myself into it (the 'personal'), and it would fit under CNF but not necessarily under 'personal essay'.
In my MFA program we had fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. The last included memoir, travel writing, narrative nonfiction (never been quite clear on that but it’s probably closest to what I do), personal essays ... creative nonfiction as I understand it includes pretty much any nonfiction that isn’t straightforward journalism or reporting!
I am pretty embarrassed to admit I never really knew what kind of writing I do (in part because it took decades to say I was writing) so I am thrilled to be able to now say I like to write Creative Nonfiction. Thank you Ramona! Even your description of it is going to make me a better writer as I keep it front of mind (that, and the class I need to take🤣 to get some skills).
I agree there needs to be CF category and am astounded they don’t have poetry!
Glad to be of help, Donna, but I hope it didn't come across that you can only acquire CNF skills by taking classes. No, not at all. I'm clueless about the merits of those classes, so I can't say you don't need them, but I will say most CNF writers, including me, just do what we do, not necessarily by instinct, but by learning on our own.
I'm sure most of those MFA programs are worth the money spent, and you can probably find plenty of endorsements, but I'm also pretty sure you're already there.
I am like Donna and didn’t really understand what I was writing would be considered creative non-fiction. Your definition really crystallized it for me. As a former journalist I knew it wasn’t ‘journalism’ but it still felt like I was pulling from some of that skill set. Thanks for shining a light on what many of us are doing, but didn’t necessarily know what to call it. This great definition.
Ditto everything Donna said! CNF, as you describe it, is the framework that feels authentic for me, yet it never occurred to me that this could be considered a genre in its own right. I feel like your defense of its importance is going to help me further clarify my intended writing style for myself. Thank you!
I, too, was unaware of what to call my style of writing. Creative Nonfiction is a no brainer and Ramona’s description is spot on. Thanks for turning the light on and advocating for this potential writing category.
I don't think I get emails anymore, either. Someone put up a link on Notes last week. That's how I found it. And I know something is supposed to happen on Thursdays at 1 PM EST, so I sometimes go looking for it. There have been a couple of times when I just gave up.
Exactly. I've gone looking for it for a month and then I gave up. I know for me on the West Coast it's 10 on Thursdays. I go looking and I can't find either. Which, honestly, is kind of a relief. Instead of getting help really, I get more tempted and distracted. More fragmented and less inspired.
I know. I usually just skim Office Hours and I don't stay for the entire hour, mainly because it's so crowded there! And it refreshes so often I lose my place and...it's irritating. I honestly don't think they need to do it anymore, now that we have Notes.
Ramona, this is the first I’ve heard there’s no category for Creative Writing or Poetry - what?! I’ll have to look at the categories more closely, although I do remember thinking they were inadequate. Meanwhile, I have mixed feelings about creative nonfiction because it’s such an umbrella term - I prefer breaking things out as personal essays, memoir, or first-person journalism - each establishes a different contract with the reader regarding factual information and truthfulness. This also reflects my irritation with the way creative nonfiction is often taught vs. journalism in terms of how much it’s acceptable to massage a storyline for dramatic impact - but that’s another issue, and I don’t want to undercut your main point here 😉
I understand, Martha, but I think I like Creative Nonfiction because it IS an umbrella term. It covers some of those examples--personal essays, memoir, humor, etc., but I'm not sure first-person journalism exactly fits.
That to me falls under Tom Wolfe's idea of "New Journalism". A more personalized style but still requiring reportorial skills and a whole set of ethics other creative nonfiction writers don't necessarily have to worry about.
Not that it isn't creative, and not that it isn't nonfiction, but when I think of CNF I don't think of journalism. I could be totally wrong about that.
Well, not totally wrong 😉 But I’ve come to believe that all nonfiction writers need to pay attention to the ethics of truth-telling and facts on the record - it doesn’t so much require the reportorial skills of news reporting as attention to research and your own position as an observer of yourself and others. First-person journalism is a hybrid, one you’ll see in an array if variations in the NYT, for instance (essays, humor, how-to advice, long-form personal narratives). I don’t consider the New Journalism, with all its excesses, to be the best foundation there - I think its Montaigne and his essays.
I totally agree on the honesty and ethics, and I try to stress that, as well. I guess it depends on the definition of 'journalism'. Is everything in the NYT journalism? Humor and how-tos? Confessionals? Maybe I have too narrow a definition.
I just look at what smacks of creativity to me and then it becomes CNF.
Understood. Some of this has to do with the huge transformation in journalism on digital platforms. But my background is in magazine journalism, which always encompassed all this stuff. For me, the more crucial distinction is between fiction and nonfiction, because that has to do with what readers expect when they read a piece - did this really hapoen or is it made up?
The term “creative” can muddy that distinction and has led to all sorts of outings of nonfiction fakes. That hasn’t done any of us writing personal nonfiction any good - especially now that OpenAI apparently considers “creative” to apply to human writing of all kinds - see Creative Writing Coach GPT.
Ah, this calls for more discussion. As always, you've provided more grist and it's because you've been to those places I haven't.
I'm not sure I'm ready to give up the call for CNF to be recognized, but I will have to think about what it encompasses. I'm also not sure AI should be allowed to dictate which words we use to describe certain genres. They're going to claim them all eventually.
Well, I'm not sure about giving up a term like CNF, either, because you may be right that it cedes too much ground to those who tend to dismiss creative writing of all kinds. This is why we should keep talking, Ramona. The questions you pose always get me thinking, which I consider another function of feature journalism: to get readers challenging their own assumptions, to get beyond static beliefs to an actual conversation.
I don't know enough about journalism to have an opinion on most of what you said, but I agree wholeheartedly with the idea that all nonfiction writers, regardless of skill set, should do their best to be as accurate and truthful as possible. It was a surprise to me when I learned years ago that "artistic license" is often a euphemism for carelessness with the facts of a matter. Until then, in my naivete, assumed all writers whose work was considered nonfiction were mindful about not spreading erroneous information (I was so young then! <sigh>).
LC, I wouldn't call that belief naive. I think it is what most readers expect when something is labeled nonfiction, and rightfully so. The trouble comes when nonfiction writers aren't transparent about when they are imagining what might have happened or fictionalizing events to fit a story. I think a first-person storyteller can let readers know when they're imagining, dreaming, conjuring, or speculating about something they aren't sure of. I love that quality of self-reflection and self-awareness, and what wonderful literary writers can do with their wishes and memories. They don't have to include everything that happened. But transparency about subjective experience really matters to me — otherwise, I feel like I'm being conned.
Absolutely spot on, Martha. I hope the more we talk about the ethics (can't think of a better word right now) of writing to publish, the more we'll get through to those who haven't yet come to think about it in those terms.
All writing, no matter where it takes us, should be from a place of honesty. There is a place for fictionalizing and fantasy as long as the writer makes that clear. Even those pieces that try to fool us until the very end are honest, in that they make it clear before we leave that we've been fooled.
Another upside to talking about these things is that we can make newer writers aware of what's expected of them. Not that we're trying to stifle them at all, only that they need to start off understanding the need to respect their readers by keeping every bit of it on the up and up.
Yes! I'm an avid proponent of rigorous self-inquiry. I think it is sometimes harder than we realize to consistently discern the difference between personal opinion or perspective, and objective reality. Sometimes things feel true, and they may well be, as a subjective inner truth, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are objectively factual.
I think many of the same questions on Office Hours appear on Notes, as well. And those same people promoting their own or others' work can do the same on Notes. Also, some of the Substack staff regularly appear on Notes so we have access that way, too.
I don't know. There just isn't that same pull toward Office Hours for me now that Notes is here.
Huzzah! Well said. I can think of several writers who creative non fiction work stirs deep in me: Terry Tempest Williams, Anne Lamont, Barbara Kingsolver immediately spring to mind. CNF should get it's own designation here.
Speaking of Kingsolver and her mastery at CNF, I wrote a piece about three disparate but equally creative nonfiction writers who use a 'rhythm and flow' technique to draw us in. It's here:
Count me in a writer here who primarily writes Creative Nonfiction and would like to see a category for that genre - or simply Nonfiction would do. I think the Literature category should have three sub-categories, Fiction, Nonfiction and Poetry.
I will wholeheartedly cosign this! I saw your comment in office hours and you couldn't be more correct. Culture is not an all encompassing slot for me. I'll jump on your CNF bandwagon!
I’m finally coming to terms that I’m not a writer anymore. I’m snowbound by TBI & PTSD, so I haven’t been able to write in years. Once upon a time I won six Emmy Awards. Now writing this note is literally painful. But what you’re talking about - this style - I started trying it on August 22nd and it’s helped get some of the poison out. Waking up to your post this morning was, well, good.
Your post arrives at an interesting time. I’m kinda finally done with what I’ve been working on... I think. I’m just working out the intro. It’s actually seems, at least, halfway decent. But it’s also 25,000 words and I’m realising I might not be able to post. With Substack there’s no support system. That makes it really hard to write nonfiction of the exorcism kind. It might be time to face reality (besides the aforementioned 25K).
Regardless, thank you for writing this. I know I already said it, but you’ve made me feel less floundering and alone.
Thank you for your honesty. I know it's trite to ask you to hang in there, but I hope you will. It's easy to get discouraged, but you have the background and the ability and maybe what you need now is permission to give yourself a break.
You don't need my permission, you need your own. Be kind to yourself. I'm intrigued, of course, by your mention of six Emmys! That's pretty remarkable. Why not write about that some time? Or just write about anything that isn't taxing or triggering and gives you joy just by putting the words to the page.
The doors here are always open and, as you can see, we have a fine bunch just hanging around, ready to help in any way. I hope we'll see you again.
I am embarrassed to say I don't know who TerryTempest Williams is, but since you put them in a set with Barbara Kingsolver and Anne Lamont, I'm going to check them out.
I'm glad you mentioned the Crypto category. I mean, I'm sure they have their reasons, but really? WTF? It reminds me of Sesame Street: "One of these things is not like the others."
Great campaign speech, Ramona. May the stars be aligned.
Hope so! Thanks.
I am one of those who found your writing through that office hours. Before you said something, I hadn’t even seen the omission (and no poetry category, wow). Now I can’t unsee it.
But I think we’ll get there. Thanks for highlighting the issue and those of us who want to be in our stories.
Totally.
I know for a fact it's a category many others have asked for. It's not that this will come as a complete surprise to the bosses.
The weird thing is that the post editor has a specific formatting block for poetry, which is really unusual (and welcome).
Thanks for joining in!
Your definition of CNF matches how I desrcibed personal essays when I recently taught a master class in that genre for Rochester (MI) Writers.
I'll bet your class was amazing, Lev. I'm so glad we think alike on this. I struggled with that first piece in order to get my own thoughts down just right. I had been doing CNF for a long time without ever thinking about how I might describe it. It truly deserves a category all its own.
It's the focus of many esteemed journals like Fourth Genre and many how-to books as well as anthologies.
The class was a blast, especially since we had a nice conference table, comfortable seats (for three hours, it matters) and good refreshments. :-)
Sitting around a table in comfortable seats sharing refreshments shouldn't be the enlightened way of teaching anymore. That whole classroom vibe, with rows of seats and the teacher up front should have been left behind in elementary school.
I've taken classes like you describe and I get so much more out of it, mainly because we all feel less like students and more like participants. Good going!
And the class size was just right: we limited it to 12 and every seat was taken. On the other hand, when I taught CW at MSU, they actually tried to change CW classes from 25 (too many already) to 30.
It should be left behind *before* school even starts!
Yes, it probably should. Small children get much more out of a book by sitting in a circle on the floor as it's being read than they do when they're sitting upright at a desk with the teacher clearly being the teacher up front.
Good point.
I couldn’t agree more if I tried. Really, really hard! I’d go one step further and have as much time for young pupils to explore the outside world as much as possible. In an attempt at restoring, in part, human beings disconnect from nature. There’s time enough to get through a curriculum designed to instil education by asking young minds to memorise all that’s put before them. Here in Ireland there are at least half a dozen subjects at primary level, which jumps to 8 or 9 upon entering secondary school. The amount of text books needed is huge. Not too mention the weight of the bags carried each day. It’s a ridiculous system. Far too many subjects and plenty of places to make yourself invisible in classes that would average about 35 in number. One in four irish people have difficulty with reading and writing, with a large number completely illiterate. Rant over! Sorry but it hits a raw nerve with me every time.
Take care friend.👏✍️
No need to apologize! This is a subject that is in need of more people who care enough to rant.
Great stack Ramona. Many thanks for sharing.👏✍️
The definition describes what I mean when I say I write personal essays. Do you find this term more clear or specific?
I have always thought that CNF was a broader term that included personal essays. And that’s how it’s defined by one of the major lit mags publishing CNF: https://creativenonfiction.org/what-is-cnf/
That's a keeper! Thanks so much, Lev. I could have pulled many quotes but this one will do for now:
"Writers had been writing nonfiction that was creative and imaginative for centuries, familiar and famous names you will recognize–Daniel Defoe, George Orwell, Charles Dickens and many others—for centuries. The change, the adjustment that it precipitated, had much more to do with the approach or attitude toward nonfiction rather than its content and, of course, the idea that creative and nonfiction were not mutually exclusive. That change in approach and attitude is ongoing. The scope of nonfiction today, most especially what we call creative nonfiction, continues to evolve, informing and inspiring readers with stories that are true, compelling, revealing and always surprising."
:-) And speaking of George Orwell, there is a terrific book by Emma Larkin, Finding George Orwell in Burma.
Thanks, Lev!
You're welcome!
Many thanks!👊👍
I’m curious what others think of this term. I like personal essay.
I like personal essay as a sub-genre of Creative Nonfiction, but it doesn't tell the whole story. It's true they might all read like essays but they're not all personal. I could write an entire piece from my own POV without once bringing myself into it (the 'personal'), and it would fit under CNF but not necessarily under 'personal essay'.
In my MFA program we had fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. The last included memoir, travel writing, narrative nonfiction (never been quite clear on that but it’s probably closest to what I do), personal essays ... creative nonfiction as I understand it includes pretty much any nonfiction that isn’t straightforward journalism or reporting!
I am pretty embarrassed to admit I never really knew what kind of writing I do (in part because it took decades to say I was writing) so I am thrilled to be able to now say I like to write Creative Nonfiction. Thank you Ramona! Even your description of it is going to make me a better writer as I keep it front of mind (that, and the class I need to take🤣 to get some skills).
I agree there needs to be CF category and am astounded they don’t have poetry!
Glad to be of help, Donna, but I hope it didn't come across that you can only acquire CNF skills by taking classes. No, not at all. I'm clueless about the merits of those classes, so I can't say you don't need them, but I will say most CNF writers, including me, just do what we do, not necessarily by instinct, but by learning on our own.
I'm sure most of those MFA programs are worth the money spent, and you can probably find plenty of endorsements, but I'm also pretty sure you're already there.
I mean, come on! I just read this and...Loudypants! Perfect! https://donnamcarthur.substack.com/p/the-first-step-to-create-change
Haha! Loudypants. Pretty sure in ten years I’ll look back and think “what was I thinking writing that?!”
You certainly did not imply I need a class. 🙂
No, I think Loudypants is here to stay. You can't give it a name like that and expect it to disappear!
I am like Donna and didn’t really understand what I was writing would be considered creative non-fiction. Your definition really crystallized it for me. As a former journalist I knew it wasn’t ‘journalism’ but it still felt like I was pulling from some of that skill set. Thanks for shining a light on what many of us are doing, but didn’t necessarily know what to call it. This great definition.
You're welcome! Glad you're here.
Ditto everything Donna said! CNF, as you describe it, is the framework that feels authentic for me, yet it never occurred to me that this could be considered a genre in its own right. I feel like your defense of its importance is going to help me further clarify my intended writing style for myself. Thank you!
Great! I'll go on defending its importance then!
Thank you.
I, too, was unaware of what to call my style of writing. Creative Nonfiction is a no brainer and Ramona’s description is spot on. Thanks for turning the light on and advocating for this potential writing category.
Thanks for joining in!
At least you still get invited to Office Hours. I don't even remember when the last one was that popped up inviting me.
I don't think I get emails anymore, either. Someone put up a link on Notes last week. That's how I found it. And I know something is supposed to happen on Thursdays at 1 PM EST, so I sometimes go looking for it. There have been a couple of times when I just gave up.
I did get an email about office hours
It's probably fair to say that I only, ever write CNF.
Yes, I think that's very fair to say! ❤️
Same.
Exactly. I've gone looking for it for a month and then I gave up. I know for me on the West Coast it's 10 on Thursdays. I go looking and I can't find either. Which, honestly, is kind of a relief. Instead of getting help really, I get more tempted and distracted. More fragmented and less inspired.
I know. I usually just skim Office Hours and I don't stay for the entire hour, mainly because it's so crowded there! And it refreshes so often I lose my place and...it's irritating. I honestly don't think they need to do it anymore, now that we have Notes.
Ramona, this is the first I’ve heard there’s no category for Creative Writing or Poetry - what?! I’ll have to look at the categories more closely, although I do remember thinking they were inadequate. Meanwhile, I have mixed feelings about creative nonfiction because it’s such an umbrella term - I prefer breaking things out as personal essays, memoir, or first-person journalism - each establishes a different contract with the reader regarding factual information and truthfulness. This also reflects my irritation with the way creative nonfiction is often taught vs. journalism in terms of how much it’s acceptable to massage a storyline for dramatic impact - but that’s another issue, and I don’t want to undercut your main point here 😉
I understand, Martha, but I think I like Creative Nonfiction because it IS an umbrella term. It covers some of those examples--personal essays, memoir, humor, etc., but I'm not sure first-person journalism exactly fits.
That to me falls under Tom Wolfe's idea of "New Journalism". A more personalized style but still requiring reportorial skills and a whole set of ethics other creative nonfiction writers don't necessarily have to worry about.
Not that it isn't creative, and not that it isn't nonfiction, but when I think of CNF I don't think of journalism. I could be totally wrong about that.
Well, not totally wrong 😉 But I’ve come to believe that all nonfiction writers need to pay attention to the ethics of truth-telling and facts on the record - it doesn’t so much require the reportorial skills of news reporting as attention to research and your own position as an observer of yourself and others. First-person journalism is a hybrid, one you’ll see in an array if variations in the NYT, for instance (essays, humor, how-to advice, long-form personal narratives). I don’t consider the New Journalism, with all its excesses, to be the best foundation there - I think its Montaigne and his essays.
I totally agree on the honesty and ethics, and I try to stress that, as well. I guess it depends on the definition of 'journalism'. Is everything in the NYT journalism? Humor and how-tos? Confessionals? Maybe I have too narrow a definition.
I just look at what smacks of creativity to me and then it becomes CNF.
Understood. Some of this has to do with the huge transformation in journalism on digital platforms. But my background is in magazine journalism, which always encompassed all this stuff. For me, the more crucial distinction is between fiction and nonfiction, because that has to do with what readers expect when they read a piece - did this really hapoen or is it made up?
The term “creative” can muddy that distinction and has led to all sorts of outings of nonfiction fakes. That hasn’t done any of us writing personal nonfiction any good - especially now that OpenAI apparently considers “creative” to apply to human writing of all kinds - see Creative Writing Coach GPT.
Ah, this calls for more discussion. As always, you've provided more grist and it's because you've been to those places I haven't.
I'm not sure I'm ready to give up the call for CNF to be recognized, but I will have to think about what it encompasses. I'm also not sure AI should be allowed to dictate which words we use to describe certain genres. They're going to claim them all eventually.
Well, I'm not sure about giving up a term like CNF, either, because you may be right that it cedes too much ground to those who tend to dismiss creative writing of all kinds. This is why we should keep talking, Ramona. The questions you pose always get me thinking, which I consider another function of feature journalism: to get readers challenging their own assumptions, to get beyond static beliefs to an actual conversation.
I don't know enough about journalism to have an opinion on most of what you said, but I agree wholeheartedly with the idea that all nonfiction writers, regardless of skill set, should do their best to be as accurate and truthful as possible. It was a surprise to me when I learned years ago that "artistic license" is often a euphemism for carelessness with the facts of a matter. Until then, in my naivete, assumed all writers whose work was considered nonfiction were mindful about not spreading erroneous information (I was so young then! <sigh>).
LC, I wouldn't call that belief naive. I think it is what most readers expect when something is labeled nonfiction, and rightfully so. The trouble comes when nonfiction writers aren't transparent about when they are imagining what might have happened or fictionalizing events to fit a story. I think a first-person storyteller can let readers know when they're imagining, dreaming, conjuring, or speculating about something they aren't sure of. I love that quality of self-reflection and self-awareness, and what wonderful literary writers can do with their wishes and memories. They don't have to include everything that happened. But transparency about subjective experience really matters to me — otherwise, I feel like I'm being conned.
Absolutely spot on, Martha. I hope the more we talk about the ethics (can't think of a better word right now) of writing to publish, the more we'll get through to those who haven't yet come to think about it in those terms.
All writing, no matter where it takes us, should be from a place of honesty. There is a place for fictionalizing and fantasy as long as the writer makes that clear. Even those pieces that try to fool us until the very end are honest, in that they make it clear before we leave that we've been fooled.
Another upside to talking about these things is that we can make newer writers aware of what's expected of them. Not that we're trying to stifle them at all, only that they need to start off understanding the need to respect their readers by keeping every bit of it on the up and up.
Yes! I'm an avid proponent of rigorous self-inquiry. I think it is sometimes harder than we realize to consistently discern the difference between personal opinion or perspective, and objective reality. Sometimes things feel true, and they may well be, as a subjective inner truth, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are objectively factual.
Upvoting creative non-fiction. It's why I write.
I don't know what Notes replaces from Office Hours. Yes, I forgot about the refreshing... you're absolutely right about that!
I think many of the same questions on Office Hours appear on Notes, as well. And those same people promoting their own or others' work can do the same on Notes. Also, some of the Substack staff regularly appear on Notes so we have access that way, too.
I don't know. There just isn't that same pull toward Office Hours for me now that Notes is here.
Thank you for this explanation. Perhaps that is the way many others feel and that's why Office Hours has never quite come back since the summer.
Huzzah! Well said. I can think of several writers who creative non fiction work stirs deep in me: Terry Tempest Williams, Anne Lamont, Barbara Kingsolver immediately spring to mind. CNF should get it's own designation here.
Speaking of Kingsolver and her mastery at CNF, I wrote a piece about three disparate but equally creative nonfiction writers who use a 'rhythm and flow' technique to draw us in. It's here:
https://writereverlasting.substack.com/p/rhythm-and-flow-how-three-famous-544
Thank you for this. Over the years, I have become quite the fan of CNF.
Count me in a writer here who primarily writes Creative Nonfiction and would like to see a category for that genre - or simply Nonfiction would do. I think the Literature category should have three sub-categories, Fiction, Nonfiction and Poetry.
I think 'nonfiction' is too broad. I think 'literary nonfiction' is too strict. I think Creative Nonfiction is just right. 😏
I will wholeheartedly cosign this! I saw your comment in office hours and you couldn't be more correct. Culture is not an all encompassing slot for me. I'll jump on your CNF bandwagon!
Great! Moving over to make room!
We need this category.
I’m finally coming to terms that I’m not a writer anymore. I’m snowbound by TBI & PTSD, so I haven’t been able to write in years. Once upon a time I won six Emmy Awards. Now writing this note is literally painful. But what you’re talking about - this style - I started trying it on August 22nd and it’s helped get some of the poison out. Waking up to your post this morning was, well, good.
Your post arrives at an interesting time. I’m kinda finally done with what I’ve been working on... I think. I’m just working out the intro. It’s actually seems, at least, halfway decent. But it’s also 25,000 words and I’m realising I might not be able to post. With Substack there’s no support system. That makes it really hard to write nonfiction of the exorcism kind. It might be time to face reality (besides the aforementioned 25K).
Regardless, thank you for writing this. I know I already said it, but you’ve made me feel less floundering and alone.
Thank you for your honesty. I know it's trite to ask you to hang in there, but I hope you will. It's easy to get discouraged, but you have the background and the ability and maybe what you need now is permission to give yourself a break.
You don't need my permission, you need your own. Be kind to yourself. I'm intrigued, of course, by your mention of six Emmys! That's pretty remarkable. Why not write about that some time? Or just write about anything that isn't taxing or triggering and gives you joy just by putting the words to the page.
The doors here are always open and, as you can see, we have a fine bunch just hanging around, ready to help in any way. I hope we'll see you again.
I am embarrassed to say I don't know who TerryTempest Williams is, but since you put them in a set with Barbara Kingsolver and Anne Lamont, I'm going to check them out.
I'm glad you mentioned the Crypto category. I mean, I'm sure they have their reasons, but really? WTF? It reminds me of Sesame Street: "One of these things is not like the others."
LOL. Ain't it the truth!!