Issue 06 / 1996
6 / The Essayist At Work
The process of paying attention
In Creative Nonfiction’s first special issue, the actual process of writing nonfiction is highlighted. In contrast to the term “reportage,” the word “essay” usually connotes a more personal message from writer to reader, and the pieces here do just that. In this volume, writers explore the merits of email, reasons for running, and the form of essays themselves. Others reflect on their own development from imitator to artist. All, however, address and exemplify what Alice Steinbach distills as simply “paying attention.”
Also in this issue are conversations with Diane Ackerman, Paul West, and John McPhee.
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Read this issue nowTable of Contents
The 5 Rs of Creative Nonfiction
What's the Story #06The Miss Dennis School of Writing
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.A Stylist’s Delight: A Conversation with Paul West
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.How and Why
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.The Art of Translation
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.The Essential Hyphenated Heat-Moon
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.The Conversion
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.Darcy Frey: Reaching New Heights
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.Twenty Questions: A Conversation with John McPhee
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.Phillip Lopate: New York Storyteller
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.Interview with Natalia Rachel Singer
Natalia Rachel Singer always wanted to write memoir but, she says, “I didn’t really understand it was available to me as a nonfamous person. As a living, female, nonfamous person, I didn’t think it was something I could do.”Interview with Kathleen Veslany
CNF asks Kathleen Veslany questions about her essay, "A Conversation with Diane Ackerman"Interview with Alice Steinbach
CNF asks Alice Steinbach questions about her essay about Miss DennisInterview with Michael Pearson
CNF asks writer Michael Pearson some questions about his essayInterview with Tracy Marx
CNF interviews writer Tracy MarxInterview with Stephen Harvey
Stephen Harvey answers some questions about his recent essayAbout the author: Jane Bernstein
As readers of “How and Why” might guess, this essay developed one day while I was running and found myself trying to figure out exactly how I could get as close as possible to saying something of meaning about my life as an essayist.Interview with Melinda Corey
An interview with writer Melinda CoreyMeander
A Nova show about the forms of nature prompts me to look up meander. Having always used the word to refer to walking, I am surprised to learn that it comes from water.Nonfiction in First Person, Without Apology
In his introduction to the 1989 The Best American Essays, Geoffrey Wolff tells a story about how, in writing an essay on King Lear as a young boarding school boy, he could not help but narrate some of his own misunderstandings with his Duke of Deception father to illustrate his sympathy with Cordelia.A Conversation with Diane Ackerman
When the man behind the concierge desk calls out my name, I look up to see a phone receiver being waved in my direction. “Kathleen, it’s Diane. I’ll be there, but I’m a little distance away.