Word Pirates

Founded in 1993, Creative Nonfiction was the first and largest literary journal to focus on nonfiction prose exclusively. They publish “simply great essays by talented writers,” according to the Library Journal, including work by Annie Dillard, Diane Ackerman, Andre Codrescu, Terry Tempest Williams, and Floyd Skloot, among others.

The creative nonfiction genre was the center of attention earlier this year when James Frey revealed that parts of his memoir, “A Million Little Pieces,” were fabricated. As the public appetite for true stories grows, so does the writer’s temptation to embellish. But even when the veracity of a writer’s work is not in question, the relevance of it often is. In her interview with us, managing editor Hattie Fletcher emphasized the importance of writers moving beyond their own personal memories into a broader realm. Good essays have an eye to the wider issues and are backed up by research. As its website says:

Writers should employ the diligence of a reporter, the shifting voices and viewpoints of a novelist, the refined wordplay of a poet and the analytical modes of the essayist.