I have been a rebel my entire life. In fact, my husband at times teases me for my resistance to authority, categorization and commitment. Mine is not the in-your-face rebellion that word brings to mind, it’s more of a subtle refusal to slip into any one category for people’s comfort. So, it would make sense I’d write a book with a genre to match, the illusive, often criticized, literary nonfiction (or creative nonfiction as it’s also known).

What is Literary Nonfiction?

According to Wikipedia:

Creative nonfiction (also known as literary nonfiction or narrative nonfiction or verfabula) is a genre of writing that uses literary styles and techniques to create factually accurate narratives. Creative nonfiction contrasts with other nonfiction, such as academic or technical writing or journalism, which is also rooted in accurate fact but is not written to entertain based on prose style.

Flexibility & Criticism

Embrace That Girl is a memoir, which falls under the category of literary nonfiction, so I began to research the genre. Turns outs, people mostly fall into two extreme opinions. Some cling to stricter categorizations and denounce the genre as skirting on the accountability to truth, or they revel in the possibilities of experimentation for the writer. Literary nonfiction is polarizing precisely because of its fluidity and its unique way of straddling fiction and non-fiction.

“Part of the excitement of the genre is its openness to creative forms as well as to creative contents, its invitation to experiment and push at boundaries between genres, and its ability to draw on an unlimited range of literary techniques.” – Michael Steinberg and Robert L. Root, Jr. in The Fourth Genre: Contemporary Writers Of/On Creative Nonfiction

Writing a Memoir & Recreating Memories

Embrace That Girl is literary nonfiction based on my life. This is my story. However, at a certain point the main character did become her own person in her own universe. To write an apples to apples account of my life would be boring. I chose the most relevant, pressing and universal lessons from my twenties and told it through my experiences.

So, yes, while all events in my book are rooted in truth, I took liberties with timelines; I merged people into one character for the sake of not confusing my reader; I reconstructed memories in my childhood that were true to the spirit of those events but obviously not exactly as it happened. You can find the full synopsis here. 

Like most things in my life, I stumbled into literary nonfiction by accident. I don’t come from the literary world. Although I have been a writer my entire life, mine has been an existence largely lived in the mainstream. I worked in advertising, I read magazines, I revel in pop culture, cult classics and anything else that inspires people.

I love studying culture and what motivates a person. That’s not a knock on the academic world, I enjoyed that space when I was in academia myself. School was fun and I thrived in that environment. I was conflicted about staying in that universe. Ultimately, I left and anything I wrote would be because it came out of me, not because I studied writing or its styles of prose, but because I love writing and it’s what I do.

I didn’t intentionally choose a fluid genre, but all things happen perfectly for us. We land where we must, I believe. I like that the literary nonfiction genre is flexible and can exist in both worlds, or even better, a new creative frontier offering the artist more space to play. I don’t mind the gray. I understand when other writers in this space defend their work claiming they reconstructed events or scenes using imagination and truth.

Why I write Literary Nonfiction

While I have experimented with writing fiction, I have generally been most comfortable writing about my experiences. I had a weekly travel column based on people and places in Miami, Fl, followed by a travel blog based on stories of traveling around the US and Europe, I then began to explore storytelling in essay form crafting reflections on entering my thirties and relationships.

I feel most at home when I am recounting my own experiences and processing what that means in context of this space and time. I wrote what I know. It’s my outlet, it’s how I become a more aware and in tune person.

 

Do you write literary nonfiction? Let me know your thoughts on the genre in the comments below 🙂