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RE: Reviewing Nonfiction
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From: sully_at_sully-writer.com
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 2010 07:29:44 -0700
What Maia describes as creative nonfiction sounds a bit like the New Journalism that was popularized in 60s and 70s. A phrase people often use to praise a nonfiction work is "it reads like fiction." I find the phrase irritating because it suggests that nonfiction cannot have literary merit unless it adopts the conventions of fiction. That thinking seems to still embody the bias that nonfiction is not literature, and suggests that nonfiction can only be regarded as "literary" or "creative" if it strives to be as much like fiction as possible.
Edward T. Sullivan, Rogue Librarian Author, The Ultimate Weapon: The Race to Develop the Atomic Bomb (Holiday House, 2007) Visit my web site, http://www.sully-writer.com Visit my blog, Rogue Librarian: All About Books and Reading http://sullywriter.wordpress.com Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/sullywriter
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re:
Reviewing Nonfiction From: bookmarch_at_aol.com Date: Fri, January 29, 2010 4:57 pm To: agoldsmith.fsu@gmail.com, maia@littlefolktales.org, sully@sully-writer.com Cc: ccbc-net@ccbc.education.wisc.edu
Megan -- please advise -- I personally enjoy discussing this and have more to say but do not want to horn in on a different discussion.
The problem with Creative Nonfiction is that, as Annette suggests, it has two meanings in adult
in a broad sense it is NF that places an emphasis on writing, on literary quality and enaging the reader. Take for example the first sentence of Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea: "Like a giant bird of prey, the whaleship moved lazily up the western coast of South America, zigging and zaggin across a living sea of oil." Any writer can tell how carefully he labored to get that exactly right -- where to place the first clause for maximum impact, how to begin with a metaphor, focus on the ship, and drive you to the punch in the stomiach at the end. While we would all love to write and read sentences like that in book for young readers -- take a look at most of the ones we actually publish: you get 4 out of the journalistic 5: who, what, where, when (why to follow). But Creative Nonfiction can, as Annette says, also imply NF in which a writer who, say, knows that two people had a private meeting, and knows a lot about them, and knows generally what happened, can actually describe the meeting for whic h there is no actual evidence -- in service of literary creativity they are allowed license with historical certainty. While a case can be made for doing similar things in books for young readers -- so long as it is absolutely clear what you can and cannot prove -- we are all aware of our responsibility to model an approach to evidence for young people. So any name that hints we are moving away from that role would be unfortunate.
Narrative NF is generally used in adult for that first meaning -- NF where pleasure for the reader is a prime requirment.
As one final word, I do wish we spoke more often about the pleasures of NF -- to entirely remove it from that cod-liver sense of obligation.
Marc
Message-----
From: Annette Goldsmith To: 'Maia Cheli-Colando' ; sully_at_sully-writer.com Cc: ccbc-net@ccbc.education.wisc.edu Sent: Fri, Jan 29, 2010 4:44 pm Subject: RE:
Reviewing Nonfiction
Maia, I agree with you on the increasing difficulty of categorizing at all with so much genre-blending these days. My problem with "creative nonfiction" (as I've heard it used in the adult nonfiction world, anyway) is that it can imply the addition of a fictional element, for example, an imagined incident based on fact. I have no problem with the author being present -- I prefer it -- but I do want to know if something really happened.How about "narrative nonfiction" to describe the current very exciting crop of books? As in narrative poetry. It would describe a certain type of the genre rather than relabeling the genre altogether.AnnetteAnnette Goldsmith, PhDGuest FacultyUniversity of Washington Information SchoolSeattle, WAChair, 2010 Mildred L. Batchelder Award CommitteeMember, USBBY Outstanding International Books Committee*** Please delete my Comcast account (ayg_at_comcast.net) from
your address book and use my new email: agoldsmith.fsu_at_gmail.com
***-----Original Message-----From: Maia Cheli-Colando
Sent: Friday, January 29, 2010 3:50 PMTo: sully_at_sully-writer.comCc: ccbc-net@ccbc.education.wisc.eduSubject: Re:
Reviewing NonfictionEd,We use "creative nonfiction" in the natural history world, and I think it fits well there - think of a photograph as a the visual parallel: a creative interpretation of a literal moment. Personally, I tend to shy away from "true books" as a moniker for nonfiction; for me, "true books" have more to do with a deep integrity. Nonfiction is an attempt at relaying an event that is not "all made up"... but it is still often not true. I think there is some danger in teaching kids that nonfiction is "true" rather than "might be true." :)Creative nonfiction usually wears its banners of personal interpretationclearly: as a reader you can tell that this is my experience, my philosophy; I the writer am present and available. But more literal nonfiction tends to mask its author beneath the seeming "reality" of the event. As you might guess from what I just wrote, I do prefer when writers willingly inhabit their nonfiction; it lends so well to critical thinking on the part of the reader if the auth or self-presents as a person, not an omniscient voice!But to terms in general... I'm finding it harder and harder to categorize books into genres as times goes on. Thus the Caldecott award seems less complicated to me -- in terms of definition, not in terms of merit or value -- than the Sibert or the Printz.All the best,Maia--Maia Cheli-ColandoArcata, Humboldt Bay, California-- blogging at http://www.littlefolktales.org/wordpress ---- or drop in on Facebook!
are currently subscribed to ccbc-net as: agoldsmith.fsu_at_gmail.com.To receive messages in digest format, send a message to... ccbc-net-request@lists.wisc.edu...and include only this command in the body of the message... set ccbc-net digestTo unsubscribe click here: =T&lМbc-net&o‘53712or send a blank email to leave-9153712-19247883.2ccf42edeb800bda75d4c9979c910253_at_lists.wisc.edu---Yo
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Received on Sat 30 Jan 2010 07:29:44 AM CST
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 2010 07:29:44 -0700
What Maia describes as creative nonfiction sounds a bit like the New Journalism that was popularized in 60s and 70s. A phrase people often use to praise a nonfiction work is "it reads like fiction." I find the phrase irritating because it suggests that nonfiction cannot have literary merit unless it adopts the conventions of fiction. That thinking seems to still embody the bias that nonfiction is not literature, and suggests that nonfiction can only be regarded as "literary" or "creative" if it strives to be as much like fiction as possible.
Edward T. Sullivan, Rogue Librarian Author, The Ultimate Weapon: The Race to Develop the Atomic Bomb (Holiday House, 2007) Visit my web site, http://www.sully-writer.com Visit my blog, Rogue Librarian: All About Books and Reading http://sullywriter.wordpress.com Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/sullywriter
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re:
Reviewing Nonfiction From: bookmarch_at_aol.com Date: Fri, January 29, 2010 4:57 pm To: agoldsmith.fsu@gmail.com, maia@littlefolktales.org, sully@sully-writer.com Cc: ccbc-net@ccbc.education.wisc.edu
Megan -- please advise -- I personally enjoy discussing this and have more to say but do not want to horn in on a different discussion.
The problem with Creative Nonfiction is that, as Annette suggests, it has two meanings in adult
in a broad sense it is NF that places an emphasis on writing, on literary quality and enaging the reader. Take for example the first sentence of Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea: "Like a giant bird of prey, the whaleship moved lazily up the western coast of South America, zigging and zaggin across a living sea of oil." Any writer can tell how carefully he labored to get that exactly right -- where to place the first clause for maximum impact, how to begin with a metaphor, focus on the ship, and drive you to the punch in the stomiach at the end. While we would all love to write and read sentences like that in book for young readers -- take a look at most of the ones we actually publish: you get 4 out of the journalistic 5: who, what, where, when (why to follow). But Creative Nonfiction can, as Annette says, also imply NF in which a writer who, say, knows that two people had a private meeting, and knows a lot about them, and knows generally what happened, can actually describe the meeting for whic h there is no actual evidence -- in service of literary creativity they are allowed license with historical certainty. While a case can be made for doing similar things in books for young readers -- so long as it is absolutely clear what you can and cannot prove -- we are all aware of our responsibility to model an approach to evidence for young people. So any name that hints we are moving away from that role would be unfortunate.
Narrative NF is generally used in adult for that first meaning -- NF where pleasure for the reader is a prime requirment.
As one final word, I do wish we spoke more often about the pleasures of NF -- to entirely remove it from that cod-liver sense of obligation.
Marc
Message-----
From: Annette Goldsmith To: 'Maia Cheli-Colando' ; sully_at_sully-writer.com Cc: ccbc-net@ccbc.education.wisc.edu Sent: Fri, Jan 29, 2010 4:44 pm Subject: RE:
Reviewing Nonfiction
Maia, I agree with you on the increasing difficulty of categorizing at all with so much genre-blending these days. My problem with "creative nonfiction" (as I've heard it used in the adult nonfiction world, anyway) is that it can imply the addition of a fictional element, for example, an imagined incident based on fact. I have no problem with the author being present -- I prefer it -- but I do want to know if something really happened.How about "narrative nonfiction" to describe the current very exciting crop of books? As in narrative poetry. It would describe a certain type of the genre rather than relabeling the genre altogether.AnnetteAnnette Goldsmith, PhDGuest FacultyUniversity of Washington Information SchoolSeattle, WAChair, 2010 Mildred L. Batchelder Award CommitteeMember, USBBY Outstanding International Books Committee*** Please delete my Comcast account (ayg_at_comcast.net) from
your address book and use my new email: agoldsmith.fsu_at_gmail.com
***-----Original Message-----From: Maia Cheli-Colando
Sent: Friday, January 29, 2010 3:50 PMTo: sully_at_sully-writer.comCc: ccbc-net@ccbc.education.wisc.eduSubject: Re:
Reviewing NonfictionEd,We use "creative nonfiction" in the natural history world, and I think it fits well there - think of a photograph as a the visual parallel: a creative interpretation of a literal moment. Personally, I tend to shy away from "true books" as a moniker for nonfiction; for me, "true books" have more to do with a deep integrity. Nonfiction is an attempt at relaying an event that is not "all made up"... but it is still often not true. I think there is some danger in teaching kids that nonfiction is "true" rather than "might be true." :)Creative nonfiction usually wears its banners of personal interpretationclearly: as a reader you can tell that this is my experience, my philosophy; I the writer am present and available. But more literal nonfiction tends to mask its author beneath the seeming "reality" of the event. As you might guess from what I just wrote, I do prefer when writers willingly inhabit their nonfiction; it lends so well to critical thinking on the part of the reader if the auth or self-presents as a person, not an omniscient voice!But to terms in general... I'm finding it harder and harder to categorize books into genres as times goes on. Thus the Caldecott award seems less complicated to me -- in terms of definition, not in terms of merit or value -- than the Sibert or the Printz.All the best,Maia--Maia Cheli-ColandoArcata, Humboldt Bay, California-- blogging at http://www.littlefolktales.org/wordpress ---- or drop in on Facebook!
are currently subscribed to ccbc-net as: agoldsmith.fsu_at_gmail.com.To receive messages in digest format, send a message to... ccbc-net-request@lists.wisc.edu...and include only this command in the body of the message... set ccbc-net digestTo unsubscribe click here: =T&lМbc-net&o‘53712or send a blank email to leave-9153712-19247883.2ccf42edeb800bda75d4c9979c910253_at_lists.wisc.edu---Yo
u are currently subscribed to ccbc-net as: bookmarch_at_aol.com.To receive messages in digest format, send a message to... ccbc-net-request@lists.wisc.edu...and include only this command in the body of the message... set ccbc-net digestTo unsubscribe click here: =T&lМbc-net&o‘54004or send a blank email to
Received on Sat 30 Jan 2010 07:29:44 AM CST
