Creative Nonfiction (Course Guide / Lisa Heise)

"The bulk of her writing is prose nonfiction, but Dillard's writing includes a potent blend of poetic language and a scientific, perceptive observation of nature. As Johnson explains, Dillard brings into her discussions knowledge from a whole spectrum of thought, "referencing physics, literature, numerous religious traditions, anthropology, medicine and folklore. . . . Through her stories, she transports to the mystical dimension--her stories invoke an understanding of the mystical that goes beyond words. Somehow, you're reading what seems just like another bird story, and it suddenly turns into much more." | From: Twentieth-Century American Nature Writers: Prose | Gale Literature Resource Center (Library Database)

"...it is perhaps Dillard's ability to look - to see - that is her greatest gift. Dillard sees, and describes what she sees, with impeccable clarity, and the most memorable moments in Dillard's writing occur in her descriptions." | Encyclopedia of Life Writing: Autobiographical and Biographical Forms | Credo Reference.(Library Database)

"I can no longer travel, can't meet with strangers, can't sign books but will sign labels with SASE, can't write by request, and can't answer letters. I've got to read and concentrate. Why? Beats me."

PDF Link. (Editor’s note in 2016: This 1988 version of “The Writing Life” has been slightly altered to reflect some changes found in Dillard’s 1989 book by the same name.) | Tikkun (Duke University Press). Summer2016, Vol. 31 Issue 3, p75-76. 2p. | MasterFILE Complete (EBSCO) (Library Database)

PDF Link. An excerpt from the book "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek," by Annie Dillard. | Read. 4/14/2006, Vol. 55 Issue 16, p22-25. 4p. 1 Color Photograph. .| MasterFILE Complete (EBSCO) (Library Database)

In the summer of 1973, observing an especially fertile growing season outside her home in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the poet and essayist Annie Dillard waxed philosophical about the life cycle and the universal impulse to grow and reproduce. Her essay collection Pilgrim at Tinker Creek was published the following year to widespread acclaim, earning her a Pulitzer Prize. The essay begins, "Now, in late June in the Blue Ridge, things are popping outside..." | Atlantic. May2006, Vol. 297 Issue 4, p60-60. 1/2p.| MasterFILE Complete (EBSCO) (Library Database)

PDF Link. An excerpt from the article "This Is the Life." | Lapham's Quarterly. Fall2013, Vol. 6 Issue 4, p179-181. 3p. | Literary Reference Center Plus (EBSCO). (Library Database)