Creative Nonfiction

We all get tired of being ourselves, sometimes. That’s one of the reasons we read, in any genre—to be transported beyond our own experiences, to consider others’ perspectives and ways of going through life, and then, to come back with a fresh outlook. It’s why we write, too: to discover unexpected truths or previously unarticulated ideas. But sometimes there are ideas or truths that feel too complicated or too dangerous to approach head-on. Fortunately, writers have a range of tools at our disposal, and one of those is voice. While assembling this issue, our editors were drawn to works with unconventional narrators: a cancer story narrated by a sardonic tumor; a profile collaged from a month’s worth of conversation; a confession—or is it?—that could crack a decades-old cold case, among others. We…

I have just finished writing a book that tells the story of the evolution of creative nonfiction, as I saw it and lived it. And now, as I write this in late July, a couple of weeks after sending the manuscript off to my publisher, I am beginning to feel like myself again. I mean, I am ready to re-enter the world—as a person, as Lee Gutkind, a guy who lives in the Shadyside section of Pittsburgh and has a family (small), friends (a few), and interests aside from writing (the Steelers, golf, hanging out at bars)—all gradually left behind as I was writing this book. There’s an isolation, what becomes an obsessed single-mindedness, that comes with committing to a book project. The book takes over your life. This doesn’t happen…

“Finding your voice”—or, even better, your voices—on the page is more than a craft challenge; it’s the key to claiming your story When you’re inside a piece of writing that hums and crackles and sparks, when a real person is talking to you from the page, you’ve encountered a voice. “Voice” is what writing feels like. It sets off sympathetic vibrations in readers. It gives us a sense of connection to another live human presence, creating a real and complex moment of communication. As the poet Adrienne Rich put it, words written with voice have “the sheer heft/of our living behind” them. We already have voices, so the guidance to “find” one’s voice is often confusing for writers. If you’ve read about voice, you might have encountered the idea that it is…

In her 2015 memoir, Jefferson chooses to write toward the cultural history she was born into—“upper-crust black Chicago,” as the flap copy puts it. from Negroland (Pantheon Books, 2015) As the book begins, Jefferson is taking it slow—easing in with repetitions and unpretentious verbs, filling each paragraph with a single sentence. I was taught to avoid showing off. I was taught to distinguish myself through presentation, not declaration, to excel through deeds and manners, not showing off. But isn’t all memoir a form of showing off? In my Negroland childhood, this was a perilous business. She has chosen language and rhythms that announce something like ambivalence toward her given project. This early voice is quiet with introspection. It is a voice yet deciding. Seven years later, in a companion book that interrogates the memoir form itself, Jefferson is anything…

More specifically, I am Al’s Primary Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma. Even more specifically, I’m Al’s Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma. Or, you could just call me Cancer, but you’re better off not calling me at all, and hoping that I never call you. Al is fortunate to have me. Really. There are many types of lymphoma more aggressive than I am. I hear medical staff describe me as non-aggressive, indolent, and slow-growing, and honestly, I find this kind of insulting. I’m no wimp-phoma. I usually affect the skin only, but in one in ten people, I will progress further to the lymph nodes and/or internal organs, with serious complications. And now, I’m doing my best to ruin Al’s day, maybe even ruin Al. Goals. So, where did I come from? Who can say? Theories…

I magine a sticky, early August morning, around three o’clock. It is dark, the moon blocked by clouds, no streetlights, a siren in the distance, medics running to a heart attack. Imagine a man out on a bike or walking a sick dog, or maybe a woman who works at a bar and has just finished the late shift. In a car or on foot or on a bike—it doesn’t matter. This stretch of road is rarely used; it’s dark and development has yet to come, so there isn’t much through traffic. Just a lonely street on a high bank above a muddy black canal that smells of salt marsh. A desolate piece of road below a span of highway that towers twenty-four feet above. The passerby is startled by what…