TABLE OF CONTENTS

WILLIAM B. HARRISON JR. • Valuing Differences
LEE GUTKIND • A Moment of Clarity
LEE GUTKIND • From the Editor (read it online)
CHAVAWN KELLEY • Red, White and Silver (read it online)
ELIOT SLOAN • The Green Room (read it online)
KURT SCHWENK • Aristotle's Ghost
FRANCINE PROSE • Going Native
JOHN EDGAR WIDEMAN • Looking at Emmett Till
SHARA MCCALLUM • Snapshots in Black and White
ANDREI CODRESCU • Joe Stopped By
FLOYD SKLOOT • A Measure of Acceptance
KATE SMALL • Gone in Translation
JEWELL PARKER RHODES • Mixed-Blood Stew
TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS • Prayer Dogs
JUDYTH HAR-EVEN • Leaving Babylon
FAITH ADIELE • Lessons in Killing for the Black Buddhist Nun
RICHARD RODRIGUEZ • The Brown Study
JULIA COPELAND • Blindsided
PATRICIA FRISELLA • Iguana Don

ABOUT THIS ISSUE

In "Diversity Dialogues," Issue 19 of Creative Nonfiction, celebrated authors like John Edgar Wideman, Francine Prose, Andrei Codescru, Terry Tempest Williams and Richard Rodriguez write essays about diversity that defy easy labels. To seek out new voices, Creative Nonfiction teamed up with JPMorganChase to offer a $10,000 prize for narratives about the challenges faced by outsiders in a world where "normal," "regular" and "accepted" are the watchwords and all others are marginalized.

The collection includes an essay by Floyd Skloot, who, having suffered from a virus that attacked and damaged his brain 12 years ago, ponders his disabled status. Skloot is the recipient of the $10,000 Walter V. Shipley Award, named for the retired chairman of the Chase board. Long noted for its diversity initiatives and cited as a model for other financial institutions, Chase began concentrating on diversity issues under the guidance of Shipley, who sought to create a work environment that embraced a mix of race, cultures, ages, religions, and orientations.

Runners up for the Shipley competition include Eliot Sloan, a schoolteacher who learned her father was homosexual when she was 11. In "The Green Room," she works to assimilate the impact of his gay identity on both their lives. Chavawn Kelley, a white Easterner thrust into the incongruous setting of a Native American classroom, attempts to teach from an outdated lesson plan that uses passages about silverware etiquette to teach writing in "Red, White and Silver." In "Confessions of a Black Buddhist Nun," Faith Adiele, the bi-racial child of a single white mother, turns her back on a carefully constructed, "politically correct" American upbringing to become a Buddhist nun in Thailand and finds her Buddhism leading to reconciliation with her past.

"Without Chase’s help we could not have afforded to commission some of the authors to write pieces," says Lee Gutkind, author and Creative Nonfiction editor. "And we couldn’t have supported some of our lesser-known writers who are the emerging new voices of the literary world. The Shipley Award, offering $10,000 for a single essay in a literary magazine, is unprecedented."