The Australian Association of Writing Programs

Creative nonfiction is actually one of the fastest growing genres of writing today in terms of writers and readers – think of all those memoirs and biographies for instance, they’re classed as creative nonfiction. Add essays, articles, memoir, narrative history and literary journalism and you are getting a sense of the genre. My PhD is in the area, so this is a subject I’m obsessed with! Creative nonfiction offers non-fiction writers fresh and exciting ways of writing, researching and thinking about non-fiction as a genre, utilising the techniques and forms more usually thought of as belonging to fiction writing, but still dealing with the factual data as non-fiction. This means that factual/actual elements – names, dates, places, descriptions and quotations – may not be created or altered, but an author can utilise literary devices (such as description, dialogue and the creation of a series of scenes) to narrate these facts in a way that is attractive to readers.

Who can I read to find out more about the creative nonfiction?

I like Lee Gutkind most as he is so passionate about the form. He’s the so called ‘guru’ or ‘godfather’ of the genre. He writes that “Creative nonfiction … is not a genre like fiction and poetry. It is a literary, cultural and political movement. The creative nonfiction writer is poised to present reality in such a way that it cannot be avoided. It is provocative and has teeth because it is true, and because it is true it can change lives and shape opinion”. Also look up Cheney, Steinberg and Root, Annie Dillard. If you google creative nonfiction you’ll be overwhelmed!

There’s been some scandals about creative nonfiction though, hasn’t there. What about James Frey making up his ‘memoir’?

Although, of course, no author can ever completely represent the intricate complexity of reality in writing, readers expect writers of non-fiction to nevertheless strive for the highest levels of verifiable accuracy in their work. Certainly, I believe that consumers of works classified as non-fiction, while not naïvely believing everything in these texts, read such works with an understanding that they will contain reliable – that is, trustworthy – information. These readers trust non-fiction writers not to manufacture or alter the truth as those writers understand it, just as these readers trust reputable publishing houses to commission, edit and publish material that is worthy of bearing the non-fiction label. In this context, it is true that creative nonfiction has become a primary locus for debate about the authenticity of literature of all kinds, as well as a focus for what seems to be a general critical anxiety that seemingly often prompts these discussions. Moreover, as each exposé of the latest literary scandal leaks from the book pages of the broadsheet press into public consciousness, creative nonfiction writers is increasingly often held ‘responsible’ for such scandal-producing texts. This is because, such accusations claim, the genre creates a shadowy and even purposefully deceitful literary space where the core principles of non-fiction writing (such as truth-telling and exhaustive research) are complexly and impossibly compromised. Yet, when analysed, the majority of literary scandals, as well as those that provoke the most outrage, involve the exposure of either (or both) of the following simple contraventions of readers’ expectations of truthfulness and reliability: some deliberate fabrication or falsehood in an ostensibly non-fiction work and/or the blatant misrepresentation of his or her authenticating identity by its author. Put simply, once the author begins to make things up and represent them as facts, the work is fiction, not creative nonfiction.