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Fourth Genre, The: Contemporary Writers of/on Creative Non-Fiction, 3/E
Robert L. Root, Jr., Central Michigan University, Emeritus
Michael J. Steinberg, Michigan State University, Emeritus

ISBN-10: 0205426050
ISBN-13: 9780205426058

Publisher: Longman
Copyright: 2005
Format: Paper; 528 pp
Published: 02/26/2004
Status: Out of Print

Suggested retail price: $69.00

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This best-selling anthology is a comprehensive and indispensable introduction to the way creative nonfiction is written today.

The Fourth Genre offers the most thorough and teachable introduction available to the cutting-edge genre of creative nonfiction. While focusing on the nonfiction form, it acknowledges the literary impulse of nonfiction to be a fourth genre equivalent to poetry, fiction, and drama. This anthology is the first to draw on the common ground of the practicing writer and the practical scholar, and of creative writing practice and composition theory, in an attempt to bridge the gaps between the teaching of composition, creative writing, and literature in English departments.

The selections represent the full range of contemporary creative nonfiction: personal narrative, essay, memoir, literary journalism, and cultural criticism.

Authors anthologized in Part I include Annie Dillard, Patricia Hampl, John McPhee, Naomi Shihab Nye, Scott Russell Sanders, Jane Tompkins, and other accomplished writers.

The articles about nonfiction forms, issues, and writing strategies in Part II, mostly written by authors whose work appears in Part I, give readers an inside view of the writers' creative processes and substantiate the academic study of nonfiction as a literary genre.

Part III consists of essays and memoirs paired with articles by their authors discussing the essays' creation and the writers' methods and strategies.

Two alternative tables of contents organize the readings by subgenres and by approaches to writing and discussing creative nonfiction.

Seventeen of the 64 selections are new to this edition.

Major contemporary authors newly represented in Part I, “Writing Creative Nonfiction,” include Jo Ann Beard, Meghan Daum, Adam Gopnick, Rebecca McClanahan, Chris Offutt, and Wendy Rawlings.

Part II, “Talking About Creative Nonfiction,” now includes pieces by such established writers and editors as Patricia Foster, Steven Harvey, and Lynne Sharon Schwartz.

New selections are drawn from journals and magazines as varied as The New Yorker, The Florida Review, and Ascent, and three top journals devoted exclusively to nonfiction, Creative Nonfiction, River Teeth, and Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction.

Brief notes on the authors anthologized serve as an aid to further reading.

* New to this edition.

Preface: Beginning the Conversation

Introduction: Creative Nonfiction, the Fourth Genre

I. Writing Creative Nonfiction.

André Aciman, “In Search of Proust.”

*Angela M. Balcita, “Dumpling.”

*Jocelyn Bartkevicius, “Out of the Garden.”

*Jo Ann Beard, “Out There.”

Mary Clearman Blew, “The Unwanted Child”

Lisa D. Chavez, “Independence Day, Manley Hot Springs, Alaska.”

Judith Ortiz Cofer, “Silent Dancing.”

Frank Conroy, “Running the Table.”

*Meghan Daum, “On the Fringes of the Physical World.”

Annie Dillard, “Living Like Weasels.”

Gretel Ehrlich, “From a Sheepherder's Notebook: Three Days.”

Dagoberto Gilb, “Northeast Direct.”

*Adam Gopnick, “The People on the Bus.”

Patricia Hampl, “Parish Streets.”

Linda Hogan, “Walking.”

Pico Iyer, “Where Worlds Collide.”

Nicole Lamy, “Life in Motion.”

Phillip Lopate, “Portrait of My Body.”

Bret Lott, “Brothers.”

*Rebecca McClanahan, “Good-bye to All This.”

*John McPhee, “The Search for Marvin Gardens.”

Michele Morano, “The Queimada.”

Naomi Shihab Nye, “Three Pokes of a Thistle.”

*Chris Offutt, “The Best Cake Made Both of Us Sad.”

Brenda Petersen, “Animal Allies.”

*Wendy Rawlings, “Virtually Romance: A Discourse on Love in the Information Age.”

Chet Raymo, “Celebrating Creation.”

*Robert L. Root, Jr., “Knowing Where You've Been.”

*Arthur Saltzman, “How to Play.”

Scott Russell Sanders, “Cloud Crossing.”

Reg Saner, “Pliny and the Mountain Mouse.”

Mimi Schwartz, “My Father Always Said.”

Michael Steinberg, “Chin Music.”

Jane Tompkins, “At the Buffalo Bill Museum.”

Susan Allen Toth, “Going to the Movies.”

*Christine White, “Reflection Rag: Uncle Joe, Roberto Clemente and I.”

Nancy Willard, “The Friendship Tarot.”

II. Talking About Creative Nonfiction.

Jocelyn Bartkevicius, “The Landscape of Nonfiction.”

Mary Clearman Blew, “The Art of Memoir.”

Annie Dillard, “To Fashion a Text.”

Rebecca Blevins Faery, “On the Possibilities of the Essay.”

*Patricia Foster, “The Intelligent Heart.”

Patricia Hampl, “Memory and Imagination.”

*Steven Harvey, “The Art of Translation.”

Peter M. Ives, “The Whole Truth.”

Tracy Kidder, “Courting the Approval of the Dead.”

Sydney Lea, “What We Didn't Know We Knew.”

Phillip Lopate, “What Happened to the Personal Essay?”

Bret Lott, “Toward a Definition of Creative Nonfiction.”

Michael Pearson, “The Other Creative Writing.”

*Robert L. Root, Jr., “Collage, Montage, Mosaic, Vignette, Episode, Segment.”

Scott Russell Sanders, “The Singular First Person.”

Mimi Schwartz, “Memoir? Fiction? Where's The Line?”

*Lynn Sharon Schwartz, “Full Disclosure.”

*Michael Steinberg, “Finding the Inner Story in Memoirs and Personal Essays.”

Marianna Torgovnick, “Experimental Critical Writing.”

III. Composing Creative Nonfiction.

Emily Chase, “Warping Time with Montaigne.”

Emily Chase, “Notes from a Journey toward ‘Warping Time’.”

Simone Poirier-Bures, “That Shining Place: Crete 1966.”

Simone Poirier-Bures, “Afterword: The ‘Greece Piece’.”

Mary Elizabeth Pope, “Teacher Training.”

Mary Elizabeth Pope, “Composing ‘Teacher Training’.”

Maureen Stanton, “Zion.”

Maureen Stanton, “On Writing ‘Zion’.”

Alternative Table of Contents: Approaches to Writing and Discussing Creative Nonfiction

Notes on Authors.

Index.

Credits.

First-Year Composition - Reader [CREATIVE NONFICTION] (Composition)
Creative Writing - Nonfiction (Literature & Creative Writing)

Fourth Genre, The: Contemporary Writers of/on Creative Nonfiction, 4/E
Root & Steinberg
©2007 | Longman | Paper; 544 pp | Instock
ISBN-10: 0321434846 | ISBN-13: 9780321434845
Brief Description

This best-selling anthology is a comprehensive and indispensable introduction to the way creative nonfiction is written today.

The Fourth Genre offers the most comprehensive, teachable, and current introduction available today to the cutting-edge, evolving genre of creative nonfiction. While acknowledging the literary impulse of nonfiction to be a fourth genre equivalent to poetry, fiction, and drama, this text focuses on subgenres of the nonfiction form, including memoir, nature writing, personal essays, literary journalism, cultural criticism, and travel writing.

This anthology was the first to draw on the common ground of the practicing writer and the practical scholar and to make the pedagogical connections between creative writing practice and composition theory, bridging some of the gaps between the teaching of composition, creative writing, and literature in English departments.
Fourth Genre, The: Contemporary Writers of/on Creative Nonfiction, 5/E
Root & Steinberg
©2010 | Longman | Paper; 528 pp | Instock
ISBN-10: 0205632416 | ISBN-13: 9780205632411
Brief Description | Buy from myPearsonStore

This best-selling anthology is a comprehensive and indispensable introduction to the way creative nonfiction is written today.

The Fourth Genre offers the most comprehensive, teachable, and current introduction available today to the cutting-edge, evolving genre of creative nonfiction. While acknowledging the literary impulse of nonfiction to be a fourth genre equivalent to poetry, fiction, and drama, this text focuses on subgenres of the nonfiction form, including memoir, nature writing, personal essays, literary journalism, cultural criticism, and travel writing.

This anthology was the first to draw on the common ground of the practicing writer and the practical scholar and to make the pedagogical connections between creative writing practice and composition theory, bridging some of the gaps between the teaching of composition, creative writing, and literature in English departments.

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