Michael Steinberg

Feb 15, 2012 9:43 AM EST

I am so glad that you've started a blog! I look forward to reading more of your thoughts on creative nonfiction and the writing process.

- Faye Rapoport DesPres

Apr 19, 2012 10:23 AM EDT

Thanks for writing this blog! It will help me keep my finger on the pulse of creative nonfiction. I love reading all types of CNF. I learn something new from each story -- even if it's only that I will never write a story like that or that I will never be able to write a story like that.

- Angela Fostr

Apr 19, 2012 12:01 PM EDT

Wonderful blog, Mike. Thanks for writing about this topic, which is close to my heart. Brenda

- Brenda Serotte

Apr 19, 2012 4:01 PM EDT

Mike, great blog. What a fantastic opportunity to learn from you over and over again. See you soon. Cindy Zelman

- Cindy Zelman

Apr 19, 2012 6:54 PM EDT

Thanks for this, Mike. I look forward to following your new blog!

- Elizabeth Langosy

Apr 21, 2012 7:36 AM EDT

Congratulations on starting this blog, Mike. As a writer of both nonfiction and fiction, I appreciate the quote about how writers of both genres are just two shades of ink swirling around the same mysterious well. Looking forward to following this!

- Mary Beth Pope

Apr 21, 2012 8:13 AM EDT

Thank you for starting this wonderful blog! What I love about creative nonfiction is that it seems to force us back to a pre-genre understanding of words and stories. Thinking about ancient texts, they can appear as hybrids to a contemporary eye even if they are anthologized as "essays" or "poems" or "stories" now. So often we find an unapologetic blend of history, journal-writing, the lyric impulse, prayer, and polemic. Even our strict notions of verb tense and voice have evolved across time, and across languages, contributing (at times) to a false sense of safety in the categories. CNF allows us to remember that liminal spaces can be mined and explored, that the subjunctive voice is no less real than what we call reportage.

- Jo Scott-Coe

Apr 21, 2012 9:18 AM EDT

Great blog, Mike. Great way to share your wisdom and expertise. I'll visit regularly.

- Maureen Stanton

Apr 23, 2012 10:21 AM EDT

I love the way your blog is just like having a conversation with you; conversations with you are enlightening and fascinating. I'm thrilled you've started this project and look forward to all your posts! Also, I love this, "Often, the impulse to write personal essays and memoirs is much like the impulse that produces certain forms of lyric poetry and prose." That fits so well! Your fan, Renee

- Renee E. D'Aoust

Apr 30, 2012 5:36 AM EDT

Great post. Love to find the champions of CNF online alive and bloggin'!

- Brendan O'Meara, twitter.com/brendanomeara

Apr 30, 2012 7:51 AM EDT

Welcome to the blog world Michael!I don't see a way to "follow" your blog. You might want to see if your web person can add that. Thanks!Brenda

- Brenda Miller

Apr 30, 2012 8:06 AM EDT

Love reading these blogs about writing, and especially creative nonfiction, and this is a good one. But something to consider. I wrote about this recently on my author blog. Love to read some thoughts...Reading so many blogs, notes, Facebook posts, literary reviews, and articles in journals and newspapers on the subject of creative nonfiction and memoir, and I have come to this conclusion: DUMP THE LABELS.It seems the only reason we have labels in the art of writing is to categorize work for the sake of an editor and the shelves of a book store (brick-and-mortar or virtual), but in reality, it doesn't really matter, does it? Oh sure, we want the reader to "know" what he/she is getting, but I wonder if that really matters anymore. Good reading comes from good writing, and labeling what genre it is just doesn't seem relevant in today's world.Memoir crosses the boundaries of journalism, fiction craft, and personal anecdotes. Creative nonfiction has elements of fiction writing, memoir, essay, journalism, and scene sketches. Fiction, as it always has been, many times (even if just partly) coming from personal experience that somehow enhances, exploits, makes bigger, becomes more poignant in order to create an imagined story. But all of it - every bit of it - comes from one place - the human experience. The lines are so blurred now, does it matter what silo we drop our stories into?I can't tell you the times I have written a piece - be it memoir, essay, fiction, journalism - and the reader or and editor asks me -- IS THAT TRUE? That question arises no matter what the genre. Sometimes I say "yes" - sometimes I say "partly" - sometimes I say "well, a little" - sometimes I say "I think so, but it's MY truth. Others may think differently." So, if the question is always the same - IS THAT TRUE? DID THAT REALLY HAPPEN? - why put a label on it. The reader's reaction is the same.Dump the labels and write; write what is in your heart, what is relevant, emotional, passionate, telling, engaging, compelling. Drop the categories and tell the good story, one that resonates over and over again, true or not.DavidThis is for David BernerAs a writer, i largely agree with you about the labels. And yes, I've had to deal with the kinds of "did this really happen?" kinds of questions you're talking about. I've even written a few essays about that kerfuffle. I also agree that we should be writing the best, most passionate work we can. When I was an editor of a journal of literary nonfiction though, I'm afraidI might have beee part of the problem. When you get hundreds of submissions, including poems and short stories, it sometimes makes you wonder if those people even care about their writing or know how they're presenting themselves as writers. I've got no answers, but If you go to the March 8th issue of Brevity (you can find the link at the top of the right column), there's a pretty heated debate on/about some of the issues you've raised. The title of the piece is AWP 2012 Dear John, I'm Afraid it's Over... Some, but not all of the replies to the piece address themselves, if indirectly, to the concerns you've raised in your post. Mike Steinberg

- David W. Berner

Apr 30, 2012 6:23 PM EDT

Michael,glad you've started this blog. Maybe I missed it, but I would love it if I could get your blog postings automatically via RSS feed. Might that be possible? I look forward to future posts. Thanks.

- Joanne Lozar Glenn

May 01, 2012 9:29 AM EDT

This seems like a wonderful venue for exploring a genre that, as you so deftly put it in your post, is rooted in the impulse and need to explore.I especially love the following passage from your post:"...as a writer you're always trying to discover the form/shape that'll best suit your intent. And the more tools and resources writers have at hand, the more varied and compelling the work is likely to be.If, as I believe, contemporary creative nonfiction is a spin-off from the personal essay, no matter what form the writing takes, lyric, graphic, and/or narrative, its hallmark is that it allows us access to the narrator's thoughts, feelings, and observations, as well as to his/her yearnings and confusions, exhilarations and fears--in short; the qualities that make us human.Which is, after all, what characterizes the most enduring writing in all four literary genres."

- Ioanna Opidee

May 01, 2012 9:29 AM EDT

This seems like a wonderful venue for exploring a genre that, as you so deftly put it in your post, is rooted in the impulse and need to explore.I especially love the following passage from your post:"...as a writer you're always trying to discover the form/shape that'll best suit your intent. And the more tools and resources writers have at hand, the more varied and compelling the work is likely to be.If, as I believe, contemporary creative nonfiction is a spin-off from the personal essay, no matter what form the writing takes, lyric, graphic, and/or narrative, its hallmark is that it allows us access to the narrator's thoughts, feelings, and observations, as well as to his/her yearnings and confusions, exhilarations and fears--in short; the qualities that make us human.Which is, after all, what characterizes the most enduring writing in all four literary genres."

- Ioanna Opidee