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Creative Nonfiction and a Look at Animal Tracking
By Shay Zeller on Tuesday, November 29, 2005.
Mimi Schwartz devotes much of her life teaching others how to write nonfiction creatively. She's the co-author of Writing True: The Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction. which spells out the ways a good writer's voice can drive a true story. She explains why this style of writing has become increasingly popular since the early 90's and cites examples in her book of authors who succeed in writing creative nonfiction. Mimi Schwartz will also read from her own creative nonfiction work including Thoughts from a Queen Sized Bed.
Later in the show we check in with naturalist Rosemary Conroy for a review of the Peterson Field Guide to Animal Tracks. A new third edition of the classic book has just been released. Rosemary also provides an overview of other tracking guides including
Stokes Guide to Animal Tracking and Behavior by Donald & Lillian Stokes (Little, Brown)
Mammal Tracks and Sign of the Northeast by Diane K. Gibbons (University Press of New England)
Tracking and the Art of Seeing: How to Read Animal Tracks & Signs by Paul Rezendes (Camden House Publishing)
Trackers interested in obtaining a tracking card can download and print out one from the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department website.
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1) So how is 'creative non-fiction' different from the old 'historical fiction' category.
2) Thanks for the tip on the tracking card -- sounds like a good stocking stuffer.
Hey Alice,
Thanks for your question about the distinction between creative nonfiction and "historical fiction." I contacted Mimi Schwartz for a definition, here's what she said:
Historical fiction invents characters and events to put into a historical context such as Doctorov's Ragtime and Smiley's Greenlanders. Some "novels" like The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara come close to creative nonfiction in that the characters are real and the imagined scenes are based on fact. Perhaps, today, he might have even called it creative nonfiction, and explained in the introduction how he turned research fact into story. The key thing is that creative nonfiction does not invent characters and events. A writer, especially of memoir, may rely on memory, which is subjective, and may fill in what is only vaguely remembered; but the intent is to recreate what really happened, as that writer sees it. -- Mimi Schwartz
Thanks again for your question,
Liz Bulkley, Producer