Bending Genre: Essays on Creative Nonfiction

by Margot Singer (Editor), Nicole Walker (Editor)

Ever since the term "creative nonfiction" first came into widespread use, memoirists and journalists, essayists and fiction writers have faced off over where the border between fact and fiction lies. This debate over ethics , however, has sidelined important questions of literary form . Bending Genre does not ask where the boundaries between genres should be drawn, but what happens when you push the line. Written for writers and students of creative writing, this collection brings together perspectives from today's leading writers of creative nonfiction, including Michael Martone, Brenda Miller, Ander Monson, and David Shields. Each writer's innovative essay probes our notions of genre and investigates how creative nonfiction is shaped, modeling the forms of writing being discussed. Like creative nonfiction itself, Bending Genre is an exciting hybrid that breaks new ground.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Essays, Crafts, Literary Fiction, Anthologies, Reference

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Margot Singer is a graduate of the University of Utah (Ph.D. 2005), Oxford University (M.Phil.1986) and Harvard University (B.A. 1984). From 1986 until 1997 she worked for the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, where she was a Principal in the New York Office. She currently teaches at Denison University, where she holds the Bosler Endowed Faculty Fellowship, and in the low-residency MFA program at Queens University in Charlotte, NC. She lives with her husband and two children in Granville, Ohio

Reviews

[Patricia Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't stop talking about this collection. Even the wide variety of essays here is a study in the essay. I really appreciated all the insights on form from many of my favorite writers.

[Simon Stegall · Rating 2 out of 5]

Generally, I think a preoccupation with genre is a waste of time, kinda like obsessing over the lines in a coloring book. This is an entire book explaining why people should color outside the lines, which is, if possible, even more tedious then a book explaining why you should stay inside them. Just let me write a damn essay and stop explaining basic literature to me. Goodness.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

The movement between theory, demonstration, and craft is most welcome in these essays. Many different CNF voices here to represent a range of issues. For me, this was a writerly text. It was suggestive in language and I found myself getting new ideas and writing new things down as I read. Especially good for a course in creative nonfiction, but just as valuable for writers of all genres.

[Lily · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a collection, a great introduction to the destruction and challenge of genre, creative nonfiction, etc. Taking a sampling of those kinds of essays classified as such, these experiments blend, queer, and hack form, often taking those same verbs as subject matter. There is playfulness and there is bending or distorting of truth to create new truths. Some pieces are stronger than others, but all in all, interesting and experimental work about new forms, new truths, and those who write them and how.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Nowick · Rating 5 out of 5]

A necessary shaking up of conventional habits of prose thinking and doing, freeing up notions of what is acceptable and what is possible. Some theory, some practice; some academic, some plainly spoken. Examples and inspirations from all fields, across all boundaries, challenging and prodding, inviting an original response. A grocery list, a military speech, a walk in the park, a fragment of a novel? Which past person or voice do we call our own, for our purposes of making self anew? Which collection of qualities of what we call real will we assemble, and in what revisioned format, and what will we call that production? Of all these queries and signposts, this last, the pinning of genre, we can agree, holds least importance. Genre is classificatory, not a function of birth, but rather a map of the cemetery—away from which we walk, chastened, alive to a new day.

[Angele · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are interested in writing creative nonfiction, this book looks at what that really means from a variety of perspectives to help you find your type of nonfiction and spark creativity in all your approaches at the same time. Really enjoying it, some essays more than others, sure, but overall a great read and really helpful.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stimulating read for anyone writing creative nonfiction with any interest at all in innovation in form. This anthology, although uneven like most anthologies, shows AND tells the exciting possibilities for this most hybrid of genres.

[Darren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gives a good variety of viewpoints on what creative non-fiction can be. I think you have to make your own decision as to how you want to create.