A complete guide to the art and craft of creative nonfiction--from one of its pioneer practitionersThe challenge of creative nonfiction is to write the truth in a style that is as accurate and informative as reportage, yet as personal, provocative, and dramatic as fiction. In this one-of-a-kind guide, award-winning author, essayist, teacher, and editor Lee Gutkind gives you concise, pointed advice on every aspect of writing and selling your work, including:Guidelines for choosing provocative--and salable--topicsSmart research techniques--including advice on conducting penetrating interviews and using electronic research toolsTips for focusing and structuring a piece for maximum effectivenessAdvice on working successfully with editors and literary agentsAmazon.com ReviewThis book is for the beginning creative nonfiction writer--one who needs to be told that writers are an eccentric lot; one who has never heard of the Yaddo artists' colony. Still, Lee Gutkind, the author of several books of creative nonfiction and the founder/editor of the journalCreative Nonfiction, has some interesting things to tell us about this genre of writing, which strives to communicate real-life stories dramatically. The most important quality that a creative nonfiction writer can have, writes Gutkind, is passion: "A passion for the written word; a passion for the search and discovery of knowledge; and a passion for ... understand[ing] intimately how things in this world work." Gutkind offers instruction on finding story ideas, focusing one's work, keeping story files, fact checking, and interviewing; he tells us what to expect from editors and agents; and he teaches us how to know when we're ready to start writing (when you can "think of nothing more to ask or to learn"). Perhaps the best tidbit here is Gutkind's emphasis on delving deeply into one's subject matter without inserting oneself into the situation. "While immersing myself in a writing project," he says, "I routinely like to