• Six basic approaches to creative nonfiction—Clarifies and explores the genre by dividing it into personal experience, biographical sketch, opinion, reflection, place, and historical incident.

  • Provides students with a clear picture of this often confusing genre.

• A separate chapter for each approach—Illustrates each with one or more short essays.

  • Gives students ample support to understand each approach and use its technique.

• The ethics of creative nonfiction—Explores honest nonfiction writing as opposed to what is deceitful.

  • Enables students to contrast and compare honest and dishonest writing.

• Close analysis of sample essays—Stresses the importance of learning through reading.

  • Teaches students to develop their own individual style and approach.

• Essays from racially and culturally diverse writers.

  • Provides students with information about traditions and values of different races and cultures.

STEPHEN MINOT, Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside, has been teaching creative writing for thirty years. A writer himself, Minot has authored three novels, two collections of short stories, and three textbooks. His numerous short stories have appeared in such publications as The Atlantic, Harper's, The Kenyan Review, The Paris Review, and The Sewanee Review, among others. His work has been chosen to appear in The O. Henry Prize Stories collection, The Best American Short Stories, The Story, and New American Stories. Over the course of his career, Professor Minot has been the recipient of the Atlantic First Award as well as the Saxton Memorial Fellowship and the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for writing.