On Creative Nonfiction as a Genre
Essay Daily is “a space for conversation about essays & essayists, contemporary and not.”
Bending Genre publishes craft articles on all forms of creative nonfiction.
The Brevity magazine blog is particularly interested in flash nonfiction, but publishes craft articles on the entire genre.
For scholarly articles on creative nonfiction, check out Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies.
Lyric essayists should check out Chelsea Biondolillo’s “On Shells” and Brenda Miller’s “The Shared Space Between Reader and Writer: A Case Study” to learn about hermit crabs.
The revolution is here! Essays are everywhere, remixing everything, says Christy Wampole in “The Essayifcation of Everything.”
On braided essays, Nicole Walker’s “The Braided Essay as Social Justice Action” has this to say: “As you stitch an essay together, you stitch yourself into the world. The world, stitched by you, is made more whole.”
Melissa Febos’ “The Heart-Work: Writing About Trauma as a Subversive Act” is a glorious manifesto on why writing nonfiction is not navel-gazing.
Did you know essays come in video form, too? Watch the ones at Blackbird and TriQuarterly.
Check out Joe Bonomo’s advice on moving from the “narrow story” to the “larger story” in “Locating an Essay’s DNA.”
Creative Nonfiction Literary Journals
Creative Nonfiction (and its sister publication, True Story)
Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction (publishes essays 750 words or less)
Fourth Genre
River Teeth (and its online series, Beautiful Things)
Hippocampus (another home for flash essays)
Proximity Magazine (a place-themed literary journal)
Writing Prompts
Check out Poets & Writers’ weekly prompts–Thursdays are for creative nonfiction!
Lee Martin writes an intricate prompt for a braided essay or memoir.
Linda Barry will help you keep a quick daily diary.
“10 Ways to Inspire Personal Writing,” from the New York Times learning network.
Silas Hansen’s “On Asking the Hard Questions” can help us uncover the real inquiry of our experiences.
“Teaching Revision” prompts from Pleiades magazine.
Professor Amy Monticello 