TABLE OF CONTENTS

LEE GUTKIND • From the Editor
GAY TALESE • from A Writer's Life
MEGAN FOSS • Fourteen Years in the Making
GWEN GRAY • The Rules of the Room
D. WINSTON BROWN • Ghost Children (read an excerpt online)
MEREDITH HALL • Without a Map (read an excerpt online)
MARGARET PRICE • Then You'll be Straight
THOMAS WANEBO • Three Minute (read an excerpt online)
ADAM GUSSOW • Christmas on the Palisades
CRAIG BERNIER • Mountaineer (read an excerpt online)
CATHERINE WALD • Kathryn Harrison: Cutting Beneath the Surface
COVER TO COVER • Reviews of New Books

ABOUT THIS ISSUE

Essays from the Edge features new voices writing to explore the darker side of life.  In light of the James Frey controversy recently highlighted by the media, these riveting and thought-provoking essays arrive at a crucial juncture for the creative nonfiction genre.  They perform what Frey only claimed to do in his memoir: honestly grapple with a difficult time in one’s life.

Craig Bernier takes us to a racetrack in West Virginia in “Mountaineer,” Megan Foss reflects on a history of addiction, prostitution and rape in “Fourteen Years in the Making” and Thomas Wanebo recounts an experience in Osaka’s red-light district in his essay, “Three Minute.” Other essays are slightly less racy, but also explore life from the edge: in "Then You'll Be Straight," Margaret Price writes about her experiences as a queer white professor at a historically black women's college, and Gwen Gray meditates on "The Rules of the Room."

Also in this issue is an essay by Meredith Hall, recipient of the 2004 Gift of Freedom from the A Room of Her Own Foundation and winner of a 2005 Pushcart Prize. “Without a Map,” a follow-up to “Shunned,” which first appeared in CNF #22, chronicles the 11 months Hall spent traveling across Europe on foot and her attempt to deal with not only the loss of a child but of the life she expected for herself.

This issue also features an excerpt from celebrated writer Gay Talese’s new memoir, A Writer’s Life.  Author of The Kingdom and the Power, Honor Thy Father, Thy Neighbor’s Wife and Unto the Sons, in this book Talese comments on his experiences as a journalist and the act of writing itself.  The two chapters included in this issue offer a personal view of Talese, through his relationship with Tina Brown, former editor of The New Yorker,  and a demonstration of his reporting skills as he follows the John and Lorena Bobbitt story.  We can think of no more appropriate way to demonstrate creative nonfiction’s strength and flexibility, even in the faces of the challenges that have been highlighted by the Frey scandal, than to publish new work by the master of the form.

ONLINE RESOURCES:

• MOUNTAINEER - An interview with author Craig Bernier
• GHOST CHILDREN - An interview with author D. Winston Brown
• CHRISTMAS ON THE PALISADES - An interview with author Adam Gussow
• THEN YOU'LL BE STRAIGHT - An interview with author Margaret Price
• THREE MINUTE - An interview with author Thomas Wanebo