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Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.

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Print Price: $201.99

Format:
Paperback
576 pp.
229 mm x 160 mm

ISBN-13:
9780195135565

Copyright Year:
2001

Imprint: OUP US


Contemporary Creative Nonfiction

The Art of Truth

Edited by Bill Roorbach

The most inclusive collection of creative nonfiction available, Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: The Art of Truth is the only anthology that brings together examples of all three of the main forms in the genre: the literary memoir, the personal essay, and literary journalism. Featuring a generous and diverse sampling of more than sixty works, this collection includes beautiful, disturbing, and instructive works of literary memoir by such writers as Mary McCarthy, Annie Dillard, and Judy Ruiz; smart, funny, and moving personal essays by authors ranging from E.B. White to Phillip Lopate to Ntozake Shange; and incisive, vivid, and quirky examples of literary journalism by Truman Capote, Barbara Ehrenreich, Sebastian Junger, and many others. This unique volume also contains examples of captivating nature writing, exciting literary travel writing, brilliant essays in science, surprising creative cultural criticism, and moving literary diaries and journals, incorporating several classic selections to set a context for the contemporary work. The editor's general introduction and introductions to each of the five sections provide useful definitions, crucial history, critical context, and abundant issues to debate. Ideal for undergraduate and graduate courses in creative nonfiction, literary journalism, essay writing, and all levels of composition, Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: The Art of Truth is also an essential resource for all nonfiction writers, from novices to professionals.

Readership : This text is intended for use in upper-level courses in Creative Writing.

Reviews

  • "From the composition classroom to the biology lab--any teacher who makes writing a key component of the learning process will find this new anthology a creative and thought-provoking resource. Using the diaries, memoirs, science essays, travel writings, and literary journalism of some of America's most gifted writers, Bill Roorbach brings creative nonfiction across disciplinary boundaries and into the classroom."--Dana Sobyra in The Chronicle of Higher Education
  • "This text is one of the best, if not the best, that I have encountered in thirty years of teaching. It introduced me to at least a dozen wonderful writers and re-introduced me to many more I'd lost track of. The selections are consistently excellent."--Rick Case, Maui Community College, HI
  • "An important contribution to an emerging field."--Adebayo Williams, Savannah College of Art and Design
  • "A superior collection of the various forms of creative nonfiction."--Albert DiBartolomeo, Drexel University
  • "An unbelievably comprehensive resource for instructors and students alike. The organization by genre and the clarity of the sample readings anthologized in each section both introduces readers to the diverse possibilities of creative nonfiction and leaves them with a heightened appreciation for the power of the prose of 'truth' writing."--Heather Fester, Bowling Green State University

Credits
Introduction
SECTION 1. LITERARY DIARIES AND JOURNALS
John Cheever
from The Journals
May Sarton
from Journal of a Solitude
Gerald Early
"Digressions"
M.F.K. Fisher
"Paris Journal"
George Dennison
from Temple
Gretel Ehrlich
"From the Journals"
Edward Robb Ellis
from Diary of a Century
SECTION 2. LITERARY MEMOIR
James Thurber
"Snapshot of a Dog"
Mary McCarthy
"Yonder Peasant, Who Is He?" from Memories of a Catholic Girlhood
Annie Dillard
from An American Childhood
Maxine Hong Kingston
"No Name Woman," from The Woman Warrior
Hilton Als
"Notes on My Mother"
Andre Dubus III
"Tracks and Ties"
Kathryn Harrison
from The Kiss
Dorothy Allison
from Two or Three Things I Know for Sure
Andre Dubus
"Lights of the Long Night" and "Husbands," from Broken Vessels
Fenton Johnson
from Geography of the Heart
Mary Karr
from The Liar's Club
Judy Ruiz
"Oranges and Sweet Sister Boy"
Spalding Gray
"Sex and Death to the Age 14"
Tobias Wolff
"A Federal Offense," from In Pharaoh's Army
Harvey Pekar and R. Crumb
"The Harvey Pekar Name Story"
SECTION 3. THE PERSONAL ESSAY
E.B. White
"Once More to the Lake"
James Baldwin
"Equal in Paris," from Notes of a Native Son
Ralph Ellison
"On Being the Target of Discrimination"
Shirley Abbott
"That Old-Time Religion," from Womenfolks
Hayden Carruth
"Country Matters"
Philip Lopate
"The Dead Father: A Rememberance of Donald Barthelme"
Vivian Gornick
"At the University: Little Murders of the Soul"
Jamaica Kincaid
"A Small Place"
Nancy Mairs
"Body in Trouble," from Waist-High in the World
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
"Current Events," from Colored People
Thomas Lynch
"The Undertaking"
Jane Shapiro
"This is What You Need for a Happy Life"
Joy Williams
"Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp"
Ntozake Shange
"What Is It We Really Harvestin' Here?"
Stanton Michaels
"How to Write a Personal Essay"
SECTION 4. LITERARY JOURNALISM
John Hersey
"The Fire," from Hiroshima
Truman Capote
from In Cold Blood
Michael Herr
"Illumination Rounds," from Dispatches
Norman Mailer
"The Turkey Shoot," from The Executioner's Song
Mikal Gilmore
"Last Words," from Shot in the Heart
Joyce Johnson
"November 1987," from What Lisa Knew
Barbara Ehrenreich
"Nickel-and-Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America"
Ann Hodgman
"No Wonder They Call Me a Bitch"
Joan Didion
from Salvador
Tom Wolfe
"Yeager," from The Right Stuff
Jon Krakauer
"Summit, 1:25p.m., May 10, 1996, 29,028 Feet" from Into Thin Air
Sebastian Junger
"The Zero-Moment Point," from The Perfect Storm
SECTION 5. THE ART OF THE PARTICULAR: CREATIVE NONFICTION CLASSIFIED BY SUBJECT
NATURE WRITING
Edward Abbey
Memoir: "Havasu," from Desert Solitaire
Sue Hubbell
Personal Essay: "Spring," from A Country Year
John McPhee
Literary Journalism: from Annals of the Former World
LITERARY TRAVEL
Gretel Ehrlich
Memoir: "Lijiang," from Questions of Heaven
Naomi Shihab Nye
Personal Essay: "One Village"
Eddy L. Harris
Literary Journalism: from Mississippi Solo
THE SCIENCE ESSAY
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Memoir: from The Hidden Life of Dogs
Lewis Thomas
Personal Essay: "The Medusa and the Snail"
Atul Gawande
Literary Journalism: "When Doctors Make Mistakes"
CREATIVE CULTURAL CRITICISM
Meghan Daum
Memoir: Music Is My Bag: Confessions of a Lapsed Oboist"
Janet Malcolm
Personal Essay: from The Silent Woman
David Foster Wallace
Literary Journalism: "Shipping Out: On the (Nearly Lethal) Comforts of a Luxury Cruise

There are no Instructor/Student Resources available at this time.

Bill Roorbach is at Ohio State University.

Making Sense - Margot Northey and Joan McKibbin

Special Features

  • A collection of over 60 creative nonfiction works divided into sub-genres, focusing solely on contemporary works (1975 onward)
  • The collection includes groups of personal essays by literary journalists, diarists, nature writers, and travel writers
  • Each section will be introduced by an essay that would define and highlight the sub-genre at hand
  • This collection distinguishes itself from other composition readers in that, it is a text and anthology for and about in definition of creative nonfiction