Issue 37 / The Best Creative Nonfiction, Volume 3
37 / 2009
Immersion journalism to intensely personal essays—the genre at its best
Anyone still asking, “What is creative nonfiction?” will find the answer in this collection of artfully crafted, true stories. These stories—ranging from immersion journalism to intensely personal essays—illustrate the genre’s power and potential. Edwidge Danticat recalls her Uncle Moïse’s love of a certain four-letter word and finds in his abandonment of the word near the end of his life the true meaning of exile. In “Literary Murder,” Julianna Baggott traces her roots as a novelist to her family’s “strange, desperate (sometimes conniving and glorious) past” and writes about her decision, in The Madam, to kill off a character based on her grandfather. And Sean Rowe explains why, if you must get arrested, Selma, Alabama is the place to do it. This exciting and expansive array of works and voices is sure to impress and delight.
Already a subscriber?
Read this issue nowTable of Contents
Introduction: Agent of Change
As I write this in December 2008, change is everywhere.“Change” was the mantra of the recent presidential election, of course, the promise on which Barack Obama and Joe Biden based their campaign—and on which the McCain-Palin ticket opposed Obama.An Insider’s Guide to Jailhouse Cuisine: Dining In
I've been making my living as a writer since I was seventeen and now I'm forty-five. In that time I've never received so much response to a story as I have to this one. I'm not sure why that is.Literary Murder
I can't imagine handing over this very personal confession to fiction.Rock Dust
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.Show, Don’t Tell
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.The Rope Swing, the Swastika, the Oldest Whale I Know
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.Table of Figures
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.Okahandja Lessons
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.No Other Joy
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.First Year
On writing “First Year”by Laura Bramon Good. Finding blood on our basement apartment walls was like receiving solemn instruction to keep searching for meaning in the heartbreaking stories—our own and others—that haunted my husband Ben and me during our first year of marriage.Letter from a Japanese Crematorium
On writing “Letter from a Japanese Crematorium”by Marie Mutsuki Mockett. Revealing something very personal without the filter of fiction was initially difficult for me. When I turned in an early draft of this essay, my agent asked for a rewrite.Uncle Moïse
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.The Face of Seung-Hui Cho
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.The Poet’s Mother’s Deathbed Conversion
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.The Storyteller
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.Lavish Dwarf Entertainment
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.Chicago Transit Priority
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.Grasshopper
On writing “Grasshopper”by Margaret Conway. I write nonfiction because I have no other choice. The characters who clamor inside my head refuse to be fictionalized or tethered to a conventional plot. My mother once said, “You’re a writer?What Comes Out
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.(names have been changed)
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.Community College
On writing “Community College” by Tim Bascom. Creative nonfiction swerves toward introspection. I’m glad this essay focuses outward instead. It’s still a bit of a surprise, since I am inclined the other way.Cantata 147: The Final Chorale
On writing “Cantata 147: The Final Chorale”by Amy Andrews. The beds in my granny’s Kentucky farmhouse were covered with “old work quilts” my great-grandmother hand pieced from scraps. The “nice” quilts, patterned, like the Double Wedding Rings, were displayd on a quilt rack in the corner.I Can’t Answer
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.An Open Letter
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.A Perfunctory Affair
We’re sorry; we’re currently unable to make this work available online.Return to Hayneville
I’m drawn to the mystery of what it is to be a self and how to dramatize that in language. Usually, I write lyric poetry. That is to say, I dramatize heightened states of consciousness in highly-patterned language and with a minimum of action and character development.