As a former journalist and current professor of creative nonfiction, I appreciated Michael McGregor's Green-Haired Gumshoes or Hidebound Hacks? Creative Nonfiction vs. Journalism. It reinforces the innate contradictions of this hybrid form. I recently met Lee Gutkind, that hardworking and earnest godfather of the genre, who seems to have no patience for what he calls 'faction' the intentional blending of fact and fiction.
I think intention is the key word, especially with all the fabricated memoirs and fictitious news sources out there. As Roy Peter Clark writes in his essay The Line Between Fact and Fiction in Telling True Stories, "Do not add. Do not deceive." The reader of creative nonfiction--first-person memoir, third-person narrative journalism, or a subgenre--needs to trust the writer or it's all over.
Source: Schneider, Nina R. "In Truth We Trust." Poets & Writers Magazine, vol. 37, no. 3, May-June 2009, p. 11. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A241944062/LitRC?u=la74598&sid=bookmark-LitRC&xid=9dc3d663. Accessed 21 Aug. 2023.
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