Creative Nonfiction Newsletter
for Serious Writers & Readers

Table of Contents

-- Mid-South CNF Conference
-- AWP 2008
-- MFA Program-Off Winners
-- Thank You to 2007 Friends of CNF
-- Pittsburgh in Words
-- Madame Mayo

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE

Join us for a rigorous and rewarding three-day writers' conference! The Mid-South Creative Nonfiction Writers' Conference takes place from February 29 to March 2 in Oxford, Mississippi and offers a rare opportunity for writers interested in travel narrative and memoir to hear first-hand from the most influential editors in the field about what they look for and how they choose the work they publish.

Featured speakers include internationally recognized magazine expert Samir Husni, Journalism Department chair at The University of Mississippi, magazine editors June Thomas (Slate.com), and Virginia Morell (National Geographic), and Mike Rosenwald of the "Washington Post." Lee Gutkind, the award-winning editor and founder of Creative Nonfiction, is the conference director and will speak about the genre and the journal. Other speakers are prominent writers, editors, and agents from across the publishing landscape.

Participants will also have the opportunity to meet with agents and editors one-on-one and to network at informal social events. Have a blast while taking your writing to the next level!

To learn more and sign up, visit the conference page.

NEW YORK! NEW YORK!

If you are heading to the Big Apple for the 2008 Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference from January 30 to February 2, be sure to swing by the Creative Nonfiction booth to say hello and meet Lee Gutkind and managing editor Hattie Fletcher. We'll be there promoting the journal and our newest publications, as well as participating in scheduled events.

Please check the AWP website for details.

THE ENVELOPE PLEASE... 

One event you won't find on the AWP website is our own personal soirée! It's open to all CNF lovers, and we'll announce the winners of the MFA Program-Off essay contest. The winning essay will appear in the third volume of "The Best Creative Nonfiction," published by W.W. Norton and due out in July 2009. We're marking the celebration with a reading, cocktails and schmoozing on the evening of Thursday, January 31, so mark your calendar! We'll be sending out another email specifically about AWP and the party soon, so stay tuned!

DANKE. GRAZIE. THANK YOU!

We'd like to give a BIG thank you to everyone who donated to our "Friends of CNF" campaign. Your tax-deductible gifts are essential to maintaining the quality creative nonfiction you love to read and we love to publish. Without your support we'd be like a pen without ink, a narrative without a narrator, a journal without a genre...you get the picture.

WORD UP.

The Creative Nonfiction Foundation is celebrating Pittsburgh's 250th anniversary by launching a new website, "Pittsburgh in Words." The site will feature 25 creative nonfiction stories about Pittsburgh and its people. The stories and essays will be chosen not only for their expression of what is true and meaningful about Pittsburgh, but also for their significance beyond the individual experience. Thanks to the Heinz Endowments these essays will be featured on the website and five new essays about Pittsburgh will be published in print. We can't wait to get started on this project!

HOLA.

CNF's book Hurricanes and Carnivals, published by the University of Arizona Press, is a collection of fifteen essays by Mexican, Mexican
American and other writers that show navigating ''truth'' is anything but clear-cut. Although creative nonfiction is widely thought to be an American art form, this collection proves otherwise. By blending fact and fiction, story and fantasy, history and mythology, these writers and others push the limits of the essay to present a vision of Mexico rarely seen from this side of the border. One of the book's contributors, C.M. Mayo, recently discussed Hurricanes and Carnivals on her blog.