Michael Steinberg

Blog Entry No. 7

At the National Book Awards ceremony several years back, author Bob Shaccochis said, "literature is the exploration of {our common} humaneness through language." Literary writers, teachers of literature, and literary critics, myself included, are pretty much in agreement with Shaccochis’s general interpretation. I also take it to be all embracing. That is, he’s including fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction as forms of literary writing.

The genre has evolved quite a bit over the last ten years. But, as we all know, not everyone sees creative nonfiction as a legitimate literary form. Many critics, journalists, and even some fiction writers, routinely take shots at the genre, especially memoirs. And there’s even been some disagreement among those of us who write, edit literary journals and anthologies, and teach. A lot of it has to do with the varying arguments and confusions about whether creative nonfiction—in this case memoir-- is either a literary genre, or, if you will, a popular form.

In an earlier post on the inner story (#3, 5/29/12), I mentioned that when I was editing Fourth Genre, many submissions were narratives on/about the external events of a writer’s personal story.  Read More