Keep It Real: Everything You Need to Know About Researching and Writing Creative Nonfiction [Hardcover]

Lee Gutkind (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0393065618 | ISBN-13: 978-0393065619 | Publication Date: March 17, 2008 | Edition: 1

The one guide every creative nonfiction writer needs to turn to when being "creative."

Writers of memoir and narrative nonfiction are experiencing difficult days with the discovery that some well-known works in the genre contain exaggerations—or are partially fabricated. But what are the parameters of creative nonfiction? Keep It Real begins by defining creative nonfiction. Then it explores the flexibility of the form—the liberties and the boundaries that allow writers to be as truthful, factual, and artful as possible. A succinct but rich compendium of ideas, terms, and techniques, Keep It Real clarifies the ins and outs of writing creative nonfiction. Starting with acknowledgment of sources, running through fact-checking, metaphor, and navel gazing, and ending with writers' responsibilities to their subjects, this book provides all the information you need to write with verve while remaining true to your story.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

You would think a guide through the ethical thicket that awaits creative nonfiction writers would have clearer answers. But writer and editor Gutkind seems positively Swiss in his neutrality on the simmering issues that flared into open warfare during the James Frey debacle. “Listen, I can’t answer all these questions with rules and regulations,” he tells a college audience in an anecdote from the introduction. “I am not the creative nonfiction police!” Rather than indulging in what he calls “sanctimonious pronouncements about Truth in Art,” Gutkind and his essayists offer a sort of literary realpolitik, providing thoughtful but studiously noncommittal glosses on “checkbook journalism” (paying subjects for information), compression (combining multiple events and/or quotes for the sake of narrative flow), and using family members as characters (tempting but potentially fatal to household harmony). It’s fine as far as it goes, but you sympathize with the woman who stood up after Gutkind’s college declaration and said, “Someone has to be. And you are under arrest.” --Kevin Nance

About the Author

Lee Gutkind is the founder and editor of the literary journal Creative Nonfiction and a pioneer in the field of narrative nonfiction. Gutkind is also the editor of In Fact and Becoming a Doctor, the author of Almost Human, and has written books about baseball, health care, travel, and technology. A Distinguished Writer in Residence at Arizona State University, he lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Tempe, Arizona.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (March 17, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393065618
• ISBN-13: 978-0393065619
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,037,840 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lee Gutkind is the founding editor of Creative Nonfiction and prize-winning author or editor of more than a dozen books, the most recent of which, Almost Human: Making Robots Think, was featured on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. As founder of the creative nonfiction movement, according to Harper's Magazine, and the "godfather behind creative nonfiction" (Vanity Fair), Gutkind travels widely throughout the world giving workshops and readings, explaining the craft and the mission of the genre.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended for anyone who wants to dive into this field., May 3, 2008

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Keep It Real: Everything You Need to Know About Researching and Writing Creative Nonfiction (Hardcover)

Who says that non-fiction has to be just the facts and nothing else? "Keep It Real: Everything You Need to Know About Researching and Writing Creative Nonfiction" is a guide for writers who are set to write nonfiction but want to do it with some flare, by taking the concepts of fiction - scene, dialogue, metaphor, suspense, and applies them to reality, as a way of telling the truth in the way it happened. Explaining the genre as a whole, sifting through facts to find the best story, points of view, libel fears, immersion, and so many more concepts are covered, making "Keep It Real: Everything You Need to Know About Researching and Writing Creative Nonfiction" highly recommended for anyone who wants to dive into this field.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great advice for aspiring creative nonfiction writers, March 27, 2008

By 

Elizabeth Modarelli (Cuyahoga Falls, OH USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Keep It Real: Everything You Need to Know About Researching and Writing Creative Nonfiction (Hardcover)

I had read some articles by Gutkind in his journal Creative Nonfiction and was excited to see a book that included some of the most valuable selections from previous issues of the journal. As a writer new to this field, I found the chapters extremely helpful and have already been able to apply some of the concepts (mostly concerning research) to my own writing. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is just getting his or her feet wet with this genre, and I think it would also be beneficial as a refresher for those who have been working with this type of writing for some time.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nuts & Bolts of Creative Nonfiction, April 3, 2009

By 

Nancy A. Jackson "constant reader" (Monroe, MI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Keep It Real: Everything You Need to Know About Researching and Writing Creative Nonfiction (Paperback)

This is a book I'm keeping for reference. It's definitely a must for those interested in pursuing creative nonfiction as a writing genre. You'll find interesting material on plagiarism, interviewing technique, and POV. The piece on David Sedaris and the family repercussions of his memoirist writings was fascinating -- and a good lesson for everyone who intends to venture into family-and-friends memoirs. As I said, I'll keep this as a reference, but it's also a very interesting read on its own.