Contemporary Creative Nonfiction

Credits Introduction SECTION 1. LITERARY DIARIES AND JOURNALS John Cheever from The Journals May Sarton from Journal of a Solitude Gerald Early "Digressions" M.F.K. Fisher "Paris Journal" George Dennison from Temple Gretel Ehrlich "From the Journals" Edward Robb Ellis from Diary of a Century SECTION 2. LITERARY MEMOIR James Thurber "Snapshot of a Dog" Mary McCarthy "Yonder Peasant, Who Is He?" from Memories of a Catholic Girlhood Annie Dillard from An American Childhood Maxine Hong Kingston "No Name Woman," from The Woman Warrior Hilton Als "Notes on My Mother" Andre Dubus III "Tracks and Ties" Kathryn Harrison from The Kiss Dorothy Allison from Two or Three Things I Know for Sure Andre Dubus "Lights of the Long Night" and "Husbands," from Broken Vessels Fenton Johnson from Geography of the Heart Mary Karr from The Liar's Club Judy Ruiz "Oranges and Sweet Sister Boy" Spalding Gray "Sex and Death to the Age 14" Tobias Wolff "A Federal Offense," from In Pharaoh's Army Harvey Pekar and R. Crumb "The Harvey Pekar Name Story" SECTION 3. THE PERSONAL ESSAY E.B. White "Once More to the Lake" James Baldwin "Equal in Paris," from Notes of a Native Son Ralph Ellison "On Being the Target of Discrimination" Shirley Abbott "That Old-Time Religion," from Womenfolks Hayden Carruth "Country Matters" Philip Lopate "The Dead Father: A Rememberance of Donald Barthelme" Vivian Gornick "At the University: Little Murders of the Soul" Jamaica Kincaid "A Small Place" Nancy Mairs "Body in Trouble," from Waist-High in the World Henry Louis Gates, Jr. "Current Events," from Colored People Thomas Lynch "The Undertaking" Jane Shapiro "This is What You Need for a Happy Life" Joy Williams "Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp" Ntozake Shange "What Is It We Really Harvestin' Here?" Stanton Michaels "How to Write a Personal Essay" SECTION 4. LITERARY JOURNALISM John Hersey "The Fire," from Hiroshima Truman Capote from In Cold Blood Michael Herr "Illumination Rounds," from Dispatches Norman Mailer "The Turkey Shoot," from The Executioner's Song Mikal Gilmore "Last Words," from Shot in the Heart Joyce Johnson "November 1987," from What Lisa Knew Barbara Ehrenreich "Nickel-and-Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" Ann Hodgman "No Wonder They Call Me a Bitch" Joan Didion from Salvador Tom Wolfe "Yeager," from The Right Stuff Jon Krakauer "Summit, 1:25p.m., May 10, 1996, 29,028 Feet" from Into Thin Air Sebastian Junger "The Zero-Moment Point," from The Perfect Storm SECTION 5. THE ART OF THE PARTICULAR: CREATIVE NONFICTION CLASSIFIED BY SUBJECT NATURE WRITING Edward Abbey Memoir: "Havasu," from Desert Solitaire Sue Hubbell Personal Essay: "Spring," from A Country Year John McPhee Literary Journalism: from Annals of the Former World LITERARY TRAVEL Gretel Ehrlich Memoir: "Lijiang," from Questions of Heaven Naomi Shihab Nye Personal Essay: "One Village" Eddy L. Harris Literary Journalism: from Mississippi Solo THE SCIENCE ESSAY Elizabeth Marshall Thomas Memoir: from The Hidden Life of Dogs Lewis Thomas Personal Essay: "The Medusa and the Snail" Atul Gawande Literary Journalism: "When Doctors Make Mistakes" CREATIVE CULTURAL CRITICISM Meghan Daum Memoir: Music Is My Bag: Confessions of a Lapsed Oboist" Janet Malcolm Personal Essay: from The Silent Woman David Foster Wallace Literary Journalism: "Shipping Out: On the (Nearly Lethal) Comforts of a Luxury Cruise