Creative Nonfiction: The Final Issue

Now Available

Edited by Lee Gutkind and Leslie Rubinkowski
November 5, 2024

The very best writing from one of America’s most groundbreaking literary magazines.

When Creative Nonfiction debuted in 1994, the literary genre it championed was largely the target of skepticism or downright ridicule. But at a time when few editors were interested in the personal essay, the magazine doggedly explored new ideas and fresh modes of expression, and over the next three decades, its contributors pioneered what would come to be known as the “fourth genre.”

The thirty-two essays collected here bring together some of the finest work Creative Nonfiction published over its seventy-eight issues. Read Pulitzer Prize-winner Charles Simic’s boyhood remembrances of the bombing of Belgrade, Carolyn Forche’s haunting, lyric catalog of her daily life as she faced down a cancer diagnosis, and John Edgar Wideman’s meditation on the photo of a murdered boy his same age—Emmett Till—and how the image haunted him forever. Here, you’ll find work by such luminaries as Adrienne Rich and John McPhee, but also essays from more contemporary voices like Brian Broome, Elizabeth Fortescue, and Anne McGrath.

With an introduction by Lee Gutkind, Creative Nonfiction’s founder and editor, this collection captures the evolution of a genre and the amazing work of the little magazine that helped make it all happen.

ISBN: 978-1-953368-81-2 | 6 x 9 | Paperback

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Praise of Lee's Books

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Gutkind is the Godfather Behind Creative Nonfiction.

Vanity Fair

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The Leading Figure in the field.

Harper’s

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In Fact is an electrifying anthology that covers the creative nonfiction universe from the personal essay to nature writing, literary journalism, and science writing.

Booklist

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Almost Human is a crazy suspense story about these kids at Carnegie Mellon and their leader making robots . . . fascinating stuff.

Jon Stewart

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Lee Gutkind rigorously practices what he preaches: he tells true stories—tales by turns painful and funny, with an often startling candor and an always redeeming humanity.

Mark Singer, The New Yorker, author of 'Funny Money' and 'Citizen K.'

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If Hemingway had a Harley, Bike Fever is what he would have written.

United Features Syndicate

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Forever Fat is a deeply moving account of one man’s physical and spiritual transformation, where never, never, never give in has particular resonance for anyone who has tried to piece together the truth of one’s life on the page, against the doubting voices that surround us.

Terry Tempest Williams, author of 'Leap and Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place'

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At the End of Life is unsparingly honest about doctoring, about decision-making, about their own ambivalent emotions. They have a lot to teach us.

Paula Span, the New York Times

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At the End of Life is an impressive, meaningful, and often courageous chorus of voices tackling a once-taboo subject with dignity, giving strength and consolation particularly to those enduring the deaths of loved ones.

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Almost Human is fascinating…Excellent reporting….chapters are filled with humanizing anecdotes about each researcher – and they are a zany bunch. One man subsisted for a time on Cheerios, chocolate milk and Budweiser. Another claimed to have wrestled a gorilla on a dare. Each set of quirks sets the stage for the researcher to explain why his work could someday change the world.

 

George Anders, The Wall Street Journal

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Forever Fat, a collection of beautifully crafted personal essays . . . demonstrates the author’s mastery over his chosen genre. Always engrossing, the pieces convey emotional pain leavened with humor and are written with piercing honesty.

Publishers Weekly

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