Editor
Edited by Lee Gutkind
Lee Gutkind, recognized by Vanity Fair as “the Godfather behind creative nonfiction,” is the founder and editor of Creative Nonfiction, and editor of more than 25 books. He is Distinguished Writer-in-Residence in the Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes at Arizona State University and a professor in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication
Gutkind has lectured to audiences around the world—from China to the Czech Republic, from Australia to Africa to Egypt. He has appeared on many national radio and televisions shows, including The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (Comedy Central), Good Morning America, National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation and All Things Considered, as well as BBC World.
Gutkind is the recipient of grants and awards from many different organizations, from the National Endowment for the Arts to the National Science Foundation.
A prolific author, his most recent books include An Immense New Power to Heal: The Promise of Personalized Medicine and an anthology, At the End of Life: True Stories About How We Die.
His new book, You Can’t Make This Stuff Up, is described by Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief and Rin Tin Tin, as the “essential and definitive guide to creative nonfiction . . . engaging, useful, indispensable and inspiring.”
More About Lee Gutkind
As a motorcyclist, a medical insider, a sailor, a college professor, a mid-life father and a literary whipping boy, Lee has proved to be an unlikely success, as he explains in the explosive and hilarious essays collected in Forever Fat: Essays by the Godfather. His immersion experiences into the motorcycle subculture, the organ transplant milieu and in other heretofore un-mined worlds about which he has written books, including robotics, along with the compelling literary techniques he has developed, has helped to create a new paradigm for writing about the world—the “literature of reality” that is creative nonfiction.
In 1997 Vanity Fair Magazine proclaimed Lee “the Godfather” behind the creative nonfiction movement—an indisputable force whose efforts have helped make the genre the fastest growing in the publishing industry.
In 2004, to coincide with Creative Nonfiction’s tenth anniversary, W.W. Norton published In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction. Booklist called In Fact “an electrifying anthology . . . an exciting and defining creative nonfiction primer.”
All of Lee’s books have been praised for being simultaneously personal and universally informative. His award-winning Many Sleepless Nights, an inside chronicle of the world of organ transplantation, has been reprinted in Italian, Korean and Japanese editions. An Unspoken Art, a profile of veterinary medicine, was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection. The University of Southern Illinois Press re-issued Gutkind's book (originally by Dial Press) about major league umpires, The Best Seat In Baseball, But You Have to Stand!, which USA Today called "unprecedented, revealing, startling and poignant."
Lee has pioneered the teaching of creative nonfiction, conducting workshops and presenting readings throughout the United States, Europe and Australia. He is a published novelist and an award-winning documentary filmmaker and served as a consulting editor at National Public Radio in Washington, D.C., teaching narrative techniques to reporters, producers and editors on the Science Desk.
Lee founded the creative nonfiction program and MFA degree in the genre—the first in the world—at the University of Pittsburgh. He helped found the low-residency MFA program in creative nonfiction at Goucher College and was director of the Mid-Atlantic Creative Nonfiction Writers’ Conference for 11 years. He is currently Distinguished Writer in Residence at the Consortium for Science Policy and Outcomes and a professor in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University.
For more information, please visit Lee Gutkind's website (www.leegutkind.com)