Creative Nonfiction

Creative Nonfiction is the voice of the genre. Every issue includes long-form essays blending style with substance; writing that pushes the genre’s boundaries; commentary and notes on craft; conversations with writers; and more. Simply put, Creative Nonfiction demonstrates the depth and versatility of the genre it helped define.

What’s the Story?

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATIONS

Politics in Prose • Traditionally, literary magazines aren’t especially partisan. But in the wake of the 2016 election, sometimes it seems everything has been politicized. JENNIFER NIESSLEIN considers the role of the litmag editor in the Age of Trump.

Wading through the Whitestream: A Conversation about Writing and Publishing When You’re Not White

Risk: An Accounting

Mother Apothecary

Faith Healing

The Diving Well

Cooking for James

You Don’t Have to Be Here

Bottomless

The Getaway Car

No Guts, No Glory • Two memoirists explain how they learned to embrace vulnerability on the page

REQUIRED READING • For more than fifty years, John McPhee has informed and entertained readers with his immersions into specific areas of expertise. Among other adventures, he has ridden cross-country with truckers, gone up in an experimental, wingless aircraft, and taken a deep dive into the Florida orange industry. As a professor at Princeton since 1974, he has also spent considerable time breaking down the process of writing, and in a recent book he shared a lifetime of hard-won insights about everything from starting a project to the physical organization of notes to the intricacies of structure. In this issue, Shannon Reed finds both comfort and inspiration in McPhee’s Draft No. 4.

EXPLORING THE BOUNDARIES • The Guggenheim Fellowship Career (Non-) Narrative Essay

after WORDS • TINY TRUTHS from winners of the daily #cnftweet contest