Addendum to Assignment Two

Five in the morning: I awake with a start. I may not have been able to dream in class, but I am nightmaring* just fine now. What has been bothering me for three weeks suddenly makes sense.  “Creative Nonfiction” is not merely creative nonfiction.  From now on I will refer to “Creative Nonfiction” as CNF to distinguish it from creative nonfiction.

Here is what has been bothering me: Why the preoccupation with a definition of CNF? Strange. I know what “creative” means and I know what “nonfiction” means. So, what is the issue? “CNF police?” Why is this even being discussed? I suppose we have grammar police, but we certainly do not have fiction police or poetry police or drama police. Ah, fifteen years ago a new phrase was coined by putting together two words that already exist to mean a specific new thing.

Suddenly I understand that when AWP (Association of Writers & Writing Programs) conducts a contest for submissions in four genres—Poetry, Short Fiction, Novel and Creative Nonfiction—it has something in mind for the fourth genre that I was unaware of. I now also see why the fuss about A Million Little Pieces.

I have been working with several people who like my piece and are trying to get an agent and/or publisher for me, including Saul Cohen, recently retired from our department, Peter Archer (Linda’s husband), and Jim Broderick (a professor at NJCU); all have been very encouraging.

Based on our class, I am going to re-think my book. It will be quite easy to more completely conform it to my new-found understanding of the genre. Some “corners that I rounded off” do not have to be quite so round.

*Turning “nightmare” into a verb? You can do that in CNF.