Current Issue / Issue 76 Winter 2022
In this, the newly redesigned issue of Creative Nonfiction, we explore the deep roots of the genre, as far back as the late 1600s, and celebrate the spirit of rebellion that’s always infused it. And we consider where we are now—as writers and citizens, as artists and human beings—at this moment that feels pivotal for so many.
Plus, new essays about the limitations of identity labels; what we can (and can’t) learn from dinosaur tracks; how to reintegrate after two military tours overseas; the challenges of translation; and how to approach a sibling who’s taken a deep dive into conspiracy theories.
INCLUDING ESSAYS BY
Explore Issue 76Featured Stories
I’d Like to Thank the Academy
How a rebellious genre gained credibility from an unlikely source
Tell It Even More Slant
The lyric essay escapes its hermit crab shell to wander free
The Secret History of Creative Nonfiction
A tour of pioneering women writers whom literary critics conveniently “forgot”
Tracing Literary Lineage
On what’s missing from most anthologies, how shared texts create soulmates, and why we need more editors of color
True Story Magazine
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#35 Not Your Ordinary Experience of Desire
A poignant postmortem of a four-year relationship, told in alternating voices, becomes a catalog of unmet needs and wants … and a path to a hopeful future. -
#34 Plume: An Investigation
In True Story #34, “Plume,” a former environmental investigator applies her forensic skills to a family mystery. What happens to us when we are exposed to toxicity, both literally and figuratively? -
#33 My Monument
Surrounded by his neighbors’ maximalist holiday displays—104 inflatable Christmas decorations in all, with not a repetition among them—Ander Monson ponders the history of spectacle and considers the meaning of community. Then, he orders a two-story-tall Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to stand among the desert plants of his Tucson front yard.
Almost Behind Us
“I think he knocked out my tooth,” I tell my husband, carefully feeling around my mouth with my tongue. My three-year-old had been in my arms, but he’d wanted to dance.The Essay as Bouquet
“Hermit crab” essays can take many forms, both natural and notNarrative Medicine, Narrative Humility
Bringing satisfaction and joy back to an ancient profession
CNF Highlights
Everything Gets Worse: An Antarctica Story
In winter of 1912, as Robert Falcon Scott was striving to be the first to reach the South Pole, six of his men became stranded for 17 months. In this story that ranges from north to south and from past to present, John O’Connor chronicles the group’s efforts to remain not only alive but sane at “Inexpressible Island,” a 9′ x 12’ enclosure they hacked out of the ice, where they remained through the long months of winter darkness.
In the Midst of Winter
“Resilience” is the new buzzword, but are there traumas too difficult to overcome?
