True stories come in all forms. From Elizabethan murder ballads to rap songs, music has been a font of stories drawn from real life. But how much does truth really matter when it comes to songs? First, there’s the question of narrative itself. For example, Nick Cave, front man for Australian alternative-rock band the Bad Seeds, has moved …
by Hannah Morgan We’ve all heard it a million times: “Show, don’t tell.” In creative writing classrooms nation-wide, this is the guideline. So, naturally, a commonly voiced criticism in workshops is something like: “This doesn’t need to be stated outright; it would be more engaging if the reader could glean it from the scene.” I have …
This Thursday we searched the globe for Broad Streets marked by uniforms. Historically central to their communities, Broad Streets have served as an ideal location for large gatherings where people empower their shared convictions with a singular, mightier voice. The visual effect of many people dressed alike can alone captivate our attention. Visual uniformity represents those unspoken commitments of a …
We recently blogged about an article by Tim Parks wherein he suggests that we don’t need stories. Parks admits that the idea that stories help us “to shape a trajectory for ourselves in the increasingly fragmented and ill-defined social world we move in” seems viable, but he dissents, claiming that there is no way around the …
Here’s a preview of the cover for Broad Street issue 1.2: “Hunt, Gather.” Lots of thanks to Tyler Darden for the cover image and for his beautiful design! We look forward to bringing another top-quality print magazine issue to our donors, contributors and subscribers! Missing out? For information on how to snag yourself a copy, check out ttp://broadstreetonline.org/subscribe/
While we wish our readers a safe season in sun and storm, we acknowledge the hurricane has served as the muse for writers and poets for centuries. Our throwback Thursday shows some very real images of Broad Streets under destructive hurricane water (New York, Richmond and Nantucket) while William Cullen Bryant’s defiantly idealistic poem “The Hurricane,” …
photo and article by Hannah Morgan About four years ago, I went to a NASCAR race with my father. Below are two versions of the same scene from that day. Though I’ve used different methods, both versions are meant to convey the same truth. But are they actually equally truthful? Intro: It’s late August in the tufted …
Hunting Down the Truth I wander thro’ each charter’d street, Near where the charter’d Thames does flow. And mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe. Excerpt from “London,” by William Blake “That word ‘charter’d’ gives a sense that everything is mapped out; that every stone is named and accounted for; …
It seems our tears may reveal the complexity of who we are. Rose-Lynn Fisher was provoked in a time of loss to photograph her tears. She went on to gather 100 depictions of tears, produced “from elation to onions, as well as sorrow, frustration, rejection, resolution, laughing, yawning, birth and rebirth, and many more, each a tiny history,” she writes. Usually, intense feelings …
Signing up for a series of true stories makes you a leader. Not true, you say? Read on! If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. —John Quincy Adams Dream more. Broad Street is a multidisciplinary venture that breaks down society’s silo culture. The ebb and flow of mixing voices reveal a product greater …
Lee Gutkind, founder and editor of Creative Nonfiction, wrote an article in the New York Times back in 2013 about the importance and function of scene in writing nonfiction. The article is aptly named “The Yellow Test,” which is the technique Gutkind proposes writers use in order to check that their work is scene-heavy. The test simply involves …
In keeping with our “Hunt, Gather” theme, Broad Street asks: Who needs mass production when you can have mass redistribution? The Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro, Alabama, got its start in 1970 when Doyle Owens purchased some unclaimed baggage from a Washington, D.C., bus line. The center now takes up an entire city block and attracts curious customers from all over. …
In light of Broad Street’s upcoming “Hunt, Gather” issue, we have hunted down icons that represent different cultures across the world. These icons are tactile heritages, gathered in order to be enjoyed and passed on. Why did these icons become a significant part of their respective cultures? Some items below, like Great Granny Lola Beth’s recipe card, have survived several decades. Others arose in …
In what ways can a true story be communicated visually? One of Broad Street‘s upcoming contributors, internationally acclaimed visual artist Stephen Alcorn, illustrates one form of visual narration with this piece on 19th-century English explorer and author Isabella Bird. This picture has been posted by explicit permission of the artist; please do not reuse it …
Broad Street’s upcoming issue, to be released this spring, explores the theme “Hunt, Gather.” Usually, we don’t think of creation as just collection and redistribution, but in a sense, it is just that. This particular way of thinking about creation is apparent in art made exclusively of found objects. The use of the objet trouvé has been commonplace in visual art since it was …
By popular demand, here is our sampler of Broad Street 1.1, “Dangerous Territory,” featuring (among others!) Shalom Auslander, Chad Hunt, Paisley Rekdal, Susann Cokal, Tama Janowitz, and Robert Alter’s new translations of Yehuda Amichai.
Have you ever found yourself wondering what your favorite writer or celebrity has on their grocery list? Or even your favorite historical figure? Famed astronomer Galileo scribbled grocery items among a list of supplies for one of his science experiments, and Michelangelo even sketched images of fish, bread, and wine for his illiterate servant. Our …
This week Broad Street recommends Josh Roiland‘s Fall 2013 article “David Foster Wallace and the Nature of Fact,” which originally appeared in Literary Journalism Studies and was recently made available by the good people at Longreads. In the article, Roiland investigates accusations about Wallace’s literary journalism, including allegations of “embellishments” and invented dialogue. Roiland reminds us … Continue reading
China-based sculptor Daniel M. Krause, interviewed in the new “Hunt, Gather” issue of Broad Street, mentions that one of his pieces is visible in an ad for Scientology that aired during the 2014 Super Bowl. (You can see the ad above; Krause’s sculpture is at 0:14). That led me to this interesting piece in Slate … Continue reading
by Hannah Morgan The New York Times recently published an article by Joshua Rothman entitled “Virginia Woolf’s Idea of Privacy,” and if you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend it. In the piece, Rothman analyzes excerpts from Mrs. Dalloway and comes to the conclusion that Woolf conceives of life as “a gift that you’ve been given, which … Continue reading
Sayantani DasGupta, a faculty member at Columbia University’s Program in Narrative Medicine, lends her perspective on the importance of narrative in medicinal practice to Creative Nonfiction Magazine in the article “Narrative Medicine, Narrative Humility.” The article is definitely worth a read in full, but below is a particularly poignant … Continue reading
Gathering for Independence “You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from … Continue reading
Did you know that the words ‘fiction’ and ‘dough’ are closely related? Read on to find out how, and for more eye-opening information about the origins of common literary terms. 1. Scene It probably doesn’t surprise you that before the word ‘scene’ was applied to literature in general, it was solely a theatrical term that meant the … Continue reading
Ireland’s 1976 Tidy Town winner, “Ireland’s Best Kept Town,” casts its Broad Street past thatched-roof cottages. The rural homes of Adare in Limerick County maintain the same thatched style of a century ago (see the pictures below). Gathering wheat straw, reeds, heathers and sedges into thick clumps, the townspeople built their thatched roofs to be resistant to quickly spreading … Continue reading
Nonfiction writers and readers are no strangers to the dialectic between those who think there is room in nonfiction for embellishment, and those who disapprove of any kind of fact-bending. At the heart of the debate seems to be a disagreement of what it means for a story to be true. Is a story true … Continue reading
The common sentiment among writers and readers is that stories are good for us, and many would say that we need stories. Tim Parks explores this idea for the New York Review of Books blog. Why do we claim that stories benefit us, or fulfill a need? Is it because they allow us to find ourselves in an … Continue reading
”Here in Oxford, exposed eternally and inexorably to wind and frost, to the four winds that lash them and the rains that wear them away, they are expiating, in effigy, the abominations of their pride and cruelty and lust. Who were lechers, they are without bodies; who were tyrants, they are crowned never but with … Continue reading
