Past Issues
| Number | Year | Title | Issue Description | Contributing Authors | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1994 | Creative Nonfiction | The Premiere Issue - the one that started it all. |
• Mimi Schwartz |
|
| 2 | 1994 | Poets Writing Prose | Poetry and creative nonfiction have a lot in common, deftness of word choice and the attention to detail to name a few. In this issue renowned and emerging poets cross forms to produce works of prose. |
• Margaret Gibson |
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| 3 | 1995 | Emerging Women Writers | This issue features work by emerging women writers who tell intricately detailed stories while being incisive, reflective and deeply personal. |
• Jeanne Marie Laskas |
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| 4 | 1995 | Creative Nonfiction Classics | This issue brings together classic essays (and a few new ones) that have helped charter the genre and develop it into what it is today. |
• John McPhee |
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| 5 | 1996 | Fathers and Fatherhood | This collection gives special attention to the memory of fathers and the importance of their role in family life and the lives of the authors. |
• Phillip Lopate |
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| 6 | 1996 | The Essayist at Work | This issue gives the reader a chance to learn more about the craft and process of writing an essay through profiles and stories about the work of authors. |
• Annie Dillard |
|
| 7 | 1996 | Points of View | This issue contains examples of the potential of the genre and of how much can be accomplished with focused commitment. It also serves as a model of the varied points of view achievable in writing creative nonfiction--from the distance of immersion/reportage to the personal closeness and intimacy of poetry. |
• Maxine Kumin |
|
| 8 | 1997 | Mostly Memoir | Just as the title implies, this issue provides a short glimpse into the lives of the writers. The authors are sharing something special and true in this collection: their own stories. |
• Ellen Gilchrist |
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| 9 | 1997 | Surviving Crisis | This issue highlights some of the most intimate, personal, and challenging moments of the authors' lives. Age, life, and disappointment are common themes throughout this collection. (Special Double Issue) |
• John McPhee |
|
| 9.5 | 1998 | The Universal Chord | Creative nonfiction essays should strike a universal chord—establish a special place, register an insight, moment, or idea that might be shared and appreciated by a larger readership. All of the essays in this issue will make readers care about what the writers care about—about a place, a time of life, a friend, or loved one. About the things which make all our lives meaningful and interesting. |
• Brian Doyle |
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| 10 | 1998 | Style and Substance | The essays in this issue are examples of how writers can blend style and substance, while using a personal voice. The essays in this issue demonstrate the true potential of creative nonfiction. |
• Lee Gutkind |
|
| 11 | 1998 | A View from the Divide | This special double issue demonstrates the many ways in which aspects of the scientific world--from biology, medicine, physics, and astronomy--can be captured and dramatized for a humanities-oriented readership. This collection of essays captures a range of ideas combining literary style and intellectual substance. These works come from poets, immunologists and physicists, established writers and up-and-coming new talent. (Special issue published by University of Pittsburgh Press.) |
• Susan Mann |
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| 12 | 1999 | Emerging Women Writers II | This follow up issue again features work by emerging women writers who tell intricately detailed stories while being incisive, reflective and deeply personal. |
• Beth Kephart |
|
| 13 | 1999 | The Brain: A Nonfiction Mystery | This issue explores attempts to live normally with damaged brains and with brains affected by drugs. All the stories are tough illustrations of the complications that interfere with life when the brain is affected even slightly and subtly. |
• Floyd Skloot |
|
| 14 | 2000 | What Men Think, What Men Write | Although the themes of What Men Think, What Men Write significantly differ from those in the Emerging Women Writers issues, what is worth noting about this narrative nonfiction is not so much what distinguishes the men writers from the women, but more what doesn't. |
• Lee Martin |
|
| 15 | 2000 | Lessons in Persuasion: Writers with Pittsburgh Roots or Connections | Pittsburgh has always been--despite its industrial reputation--a great city in which to be a writer and, although Pittsburgh is not the subject of most of the essays in this issue, the featured authors are bound together by their affinity for the written word and their collective fondness for Pittsburgh. (Special issue published by University of Pittsburgh Press.) |
• Annie Dillard |
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| 16 | 2001 | The Line Between Fact and Fiction | This issue explores the importance of creative nonfiction in today's literary world. These essays deal with the division between fiction and nonfiction and why the distinctions matter. |
• Czeslaw Milosz |
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| 17 | 2001 | Between the Lines | This issue features essays that, among other things, take us between the lines of writers and readers. These essays are writers writing about writing, and they do it in a variety of creative and informative contexts. |
• Brian Doyle |
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| 18 | 2001 | Intimate Details | The essays published in this issue represent survival and change, expressed through dramatic stories and intimacy of detail. |
• Meredith Hall |
|
| 19 | 2002 | Diversity Details | In this issue, celebrated and emerging authors write essays about diversity that defy easy labels. To seek out some new voices for this collection, Creative Nonfiction teamed up with JPMorganChase to offer a $10,000 prize for narratives about the challenges faced by outsiders in a world where "normal," "regular" and "accepted" are the watchwords and all others are marginalized. |
• Lee Gutkind |
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| 20 | 2003 | Clarity | This issue features writers searching for clarity in their lives, and the rest of the world, as they struggle to make social and personal changes. |
• Meredith Hall |
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| 21 | 2003 | Rage and Reconciliation | This issue features writers, both patients and doctors, exploring the current state of American health care. (This issue received generous support from the Jewish Healthcare Foundation of Western Pennsylvania.) |
• Linda Peeno |
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| 22 | 2004 | Creative Nonfiction in the Crosshairs | This issue responds to the recent barrage of criticism from journalists and critics of the genre. |
• Lee Gutkind |
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| 23 | 2004 | Mexican Voices | This issue seeks to understand how nonfiction forms have evolved in regions outside of the United States–specifically, in Mexico. These essays offer the reader more than the just an understanding of the literary traditions of Mexico. |
• Ilan Stavans |
|
| 24/25 | 2004 | In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction | This anthology features the best writing published in Creative Nonfiction over its first ten years. Culled from the 300 pieces published in the journal, themselves chosen from over 10,000 manuscripts, the stories now published in In Fact showcase the possibilities of the genre in pieces by the famous, and those surely destined to be so. Each author has also included a reflection on the process of composing the particular piece included. (Special issue published by W. W. Norton & Co. to celebrate CNF's 10 year anniversary.) |
• Annie Dillard |
|
| 26 | 2005 | The Poets and Writers Issue | This issue features many writers whose work crosses the borders between literary genres, from poetry and fiction to creative nonfiction, and illustrates how the lines of division between writers may be disintegrating. The stories themselves also flirt with the idea of crossing boundaries - between life and death, between countries and cultures and languages, and between individuals. |
• Lee Gutkind |
|
| 27 | 2005 | Writing It Short | This issue features highlights from the online creative nonfiction journal Brevity1, which challenges writers to do their best in fewer than 750 words. |
• Natalie Goldberg |
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| 28 | 2006 | Essays from the Edge | This issue features new voices exploring the darker side of life. These essays grapple with a difficult time in each author’s life. |
• Gay Talese |
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| 29 | 2006 | A Million Little Choices: The ABCs of CNF | This issue contains a glossary of concise entries that define and explain the anchoring elements of the genre, from scene and dialogue to acknowledging your sources. (This issue has been republished, in expanded form, as Keep It Real: Everything You Need to Know About Researching and Writing Creative Nonfiction.) |
• Lee Gutkind |
|
| 30 | 2006 | Our Roots are Deep with Passion: Creative Nonfiction Collects New Essays by Italian American Writers | Established and emerging writers reflect on the ways their lives have been accented with uniquely Italian American flavors. The pieces are as varied as their authors, but all explore the distinctive intersection of language, tradition, cuisine, and culture that characterize the diverse experience of Americans of Italian heritage. |
• Joe Mantegna |
|
| 31 | 2007 | Imagining the Future: Writing and Publishing in 2025 and Beyond | This issue brings together voices from across the publishing spectrum—from novelists and journalists to librarians and editors—all of them speculating about the ways literature and the business of writing will change in the coming decades. |
• Dinty W. Moore |
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| 32 | 2007 | The Best Creative Nonfiction, Vol. 1 | Creative Nonfiction scoured alternative publications, blogs, literary journals and other often-overlooked publications in search of new voices and innovative ideas for essays written with panache and power. (Special issue published by W. W. Norton.) |
• Carol Smith |
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| 33 | 2007 | Silence Kills: Speaking Out and Saving Lives | The essays collected in Silence Kills present a compelling, and often frightening, look at the lack of communication and understanding currently plaguing the American health care system. |
• Abraham Verghese |
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| 34 | 2008 | Anatomy of Baseball | This collection of essays about the great American pastime dissects the game one element at a time to try to get at why we find ourselves in the stands or on the field, season after season. |
• Yogi Berra |
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| 35 | 2008 | The Best Creative Nonfiction, Vol. 2 | Creative Nonfiction again scoured alternative publications, blogs, literary journals and other often-overlooked publications in search of new voices and innovative ideas for essays written with panache and power. (Special issue published by W. W. Norton.) |
• Heidi Julavits |
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| 36 | 2009 | First Lede, Real Lead | This issue offers readers a look at the editorial process and the challenge of deciding where a story really begins. |
• Laurie Rachkus Uttich |
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| 37 | 2009 | The Best Creative Nonfiction, Vol. 3 | Special issue published by W. W. Norton, book format. |
• Sean Rowe |
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| 38 | 2010 | Essays: Immortality | First issue in a new magazine style, no longer a journal format. Essays on "Immortality", interview with Dave Eggers, David Shields "required reading". |
• Richard Rodriguez |
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| 39 | 2010 | Pioneers of the Genre | This issue pays tribute to pioneers of the genre such as Norman Mailer and Gay Talese. |
• Doris Kearns Goodwin |
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| 40 | 2010 | The Animals Issue | Essays with a focus on animals plus an Encounter with Lauren Slater who talks about her writing process, truth, and why people get so angry with her; Phillip Lopate on the ethics of writing about other people and Sarah Z. Wexler on magazine editors' unwillingness to adopt to new technology |
• Sarah Z. Wexler |
|
| 41 | 2011 | The Food Issue | Stories about food and our relationship to what we eat--from pork to lasagna, and from pomegranates to toasted grasshoppers. Ruth Reichl talks about differences between men and women (in the kitchen and on the page) and how she's turning her Twitter feed into a book; Phillip Lopate shares an uncomfortable secret about teaching creative writing; and pieces are featured by Lee Gutkind, Robert Atwan, and others. |
• John T. Edge |
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| 42 | 2011 | Summer 2011 | Winning essays from CNF and Salt's "The Night" contest, CNF's MFA Program-Off and the Norman Mailer College Writing contest. Plus, Phillip Lopate and Lee Gutkind grapple with the implications of facts; Pulitzer Prize-winner Ira Berkow finds inspiration in the art world; Paul West enters the mind of Nazi turncoat Hermann Fegelein in 'Pushing the Boundaries'; Susan Orlean talks about teaching young writers; and more. |
• Lisa Schamess |
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| 43 | 2012 | The Anger & Revenge Issue | The meanest batch of essays CNF has ever published includes a post-divorce bonfire; post-traumatic stress; an assassination attempt; a kidnapping plot; Dick Cheney, and more. Plus, Buzz Bissinger talks about waking up angry, how he chooses his subjects, and why he feels comfortable not being objective; Ned Stuckey-French makes a case for expanding the essay canon; Anthony Aycock stretches out on the page; and Phillip Lopate gets lost in the library. |
• Ned Stuckey-French |
|
| 44 | 2012 | Spring 2012 | A slew of true stories about navigating unfamiliar terrain: going out into Cairo in niqab; searching for a young man lost in the Grand Canyon; waiting for news about a possible nuclear accident in Ukraine; decoding an invitation in Vietnam; and committing (digital) atrocities in foreign lands. It also explores the line between documentation and exploitation; the legacy of mid-century environmental writers; the small publishing landscape; and the quiet pleasures of quotidian nonfiction. |
• Adam Arvidson |
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| 45 | 2012 | True Crime | Wrapped in a noir-inspired cover are true stories of unsolved murders, grave-robbing, identity theft, abduction, addiction, and more. This issue also features an Encounter with Erik Larson, as well as columns on our long-standing fascination with true crime; sex worker memoirs; the ethics of writing about violence; legal help for writers; and side gigs for the nonfiction 99%. |
• Harold Schechter |
Read more about this topic: Creative Nonfiction (magazine)
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