When writers talk about creative nonfiction as both journalism and an offshoot of literary narrative that refuses to deviate from the truth, they’re talking about a genre that Lee Gutkind, a Pittsburgher who is often lauded as one of the movement’s founders, helped popularize decades ago.
For a quarter of a century, Mr. Gutkind, founder of the locally based Creative Nonfiction Foundation and the national literary magazine that takes its name from the same movement, has been obsessed with “true stories, well told” — the mantra that adorns the top of Creative Nonfiction’s website.
From Friday to Saturday, Point Park University will partner with the Creative Nonfiction Foundation to host the 2017 Creative Nonfiction Writers’ Conference. This is Creative Nonfiction’s fifth conference in Pittsburgh, but the first time it has worked with a partner for the annual event.
The panels spread over two days are an aspiring nonfiction writer’s dream. It will be an opportunity to hear directly from literary agents and publishing executives about every stage of the process. The Friday keynote will feature editors from Esquire, Harper’s, The New Yorker and The Paris Review in conversation with attendees and each other about the state of the American magazine.
Instead of scoring one big famous name for the keynote, Mr. Gutkind and his colleagues were interested in making it as practical and responsive to the needs of writers as possible.
“Not that [big names] are bad or wrong,” Mr. Gutkind wrote in an email, “but our keynote brings to participants a very unique perspective: senior editors from major magazines talking about the inner editorial workings of their magazines, how they respond and work with writers, how the magazine world has adapted to the internet and social media.
“I have been around Pittsburgh a long time,” he continued, “and never before in my memory have a group of such accomplished and distinguished editors come together at the same time and on the same stage in this town … to discuss the state of the pre-eminent American magazines.”
Another expected highlight of the conference will be the Saturday morning panel “Creative Allies: The Writer-Editor Relationship.” The panel will feature Maggie Jones, a visiting lecturer at the University of Pittsburgh and contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine in conversation with New York Times Magazine features editor Ilena Silverman.
Asked what new nonfiction writers need most to learn, Mr. Gutkind leaned on his decades of experience. “That the challenge of creative nonfiction, whether you are writing personal history/memoir or narrative journalism, is not just writing a good story, but informing and teaching your readers at the same time.” He added that a good writer should have a mission to “impact a reader, to change a mind, to make them, through the power of words and ideas, learn something new about any subject and about any life.”
Mr. Gutkind is very conscious of how “fluid” facts have become in today’s political environment and is even less inclined to tolerate blurring the lines between truth and falsehood today than when he started on the creative nonfiction path decades ago.
“Now that alternative facts and fake news have become part of our national conversation, I am hoping that all nonfiction writers and their publishers will recognize that the truth in what they write and publish is even more important than ever before,” he wrote.
“We must seek to achieve a standard of accuracy and honesty in nonfiction that is indisputable and, when possible, totally verifiable. It is not only our responsibility now in the face of subterfuge by our most powerful and influential elected officials and their advisers, it should be our mission.”
From Friday morning’s opening remarks to Saturday evening’s closing thoughts, the 2017 Creative Nonfiction Writers Conference will be the kind of literary event writers in New York and other publishing capitals take for granted. Two-day passes are $385 general admission, $175 for students and $125 for Point Park University students and faculty. For more information: creativenonfiction.org/2017-creative-nonfiction-writers-conference.
Tony Norman: tnorman@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1631; Twitter @TonyNormanPG.
First Published: May 24, 2017, 4:00 a.m.
