“David Foster Wallace and the Nature of Fact” by Josh Roiland
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...
Are We Taking the Thought out of Nonfiction?
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...
Truly Embellished Nonfiction
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...
Do Stories Benefit Us?
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...
Dear Life: A Childhood Visitation by Nobel-Prize Winner Alice Munro
Alice Munro was just awarded the Nobel Prize in literature this past week. Munro, a Canadian-born author, was described by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm (responsible for awarding the Nobel Prize) as “master of the contemporary short story.” Born in Wingham, Ontario, Munro published her first story while studying at the University of...
