This month I present four of the strongest pieces of creative nonfiction that it’s ever been my pleasure to publish. Each of these, from the first syllable to the last, is an unimpeachably excellent example of the form.  Creative nonfiction—“true stories told with techniques and strategies adapted from narrative writing”—has hit critical mass and is even expanding into subgenres that are entirely its own.

“So you’ve been bleeding?”  Thus begins Kelly Sokol Avery’s “Strings.”  Every sentence describes a true event, and the events keep you moving addictively from paragraph to paragraph, as though you were reading the greatest suspense novel in the world.  But you’re not.  You’re reading something far more meaningful.

Though it can be argued that the first practitioners of creative nonfiction were Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, and Tom Wolfe, this is hardly a stodgy genre for aging people.  I’m ceaselessly amazed at the very young people who can write creative fiction so naturally and powerfully that their work feels as though it has existed forever.  Such is the case with Niki Rokicki’s “Stages.”  

In “Letter to Tom Araya (of Slayer),” by J. J. Anselmi, we see evidence that creative nonfiction has developed to the point where we can now posit a genre that I’m going to call “meta-creative-nonfiction.”  In fact, I think this new sub-genre has so much possibility that if Tom Araya would like to respond with a meta-creative-nonfictional piece of his own, I’d be very interested in considering it for publication.

Finally, “Onset” by Mike Alvarez demonstrates that an excellent work of creative nonfiction can be not only true and moving, but an absolute triumph of craft.  Read this one for yourself and see.  There is just as much skill involved in structuring a piece of creative nonfiction as there is in doing any kind of writing.

As readers, we benefit from all of this through our pleasure.