Creative Nonfiction Newsletter
for Serious Writers & Readers

This may come as a surprise to some, but here at CNF, we consider narrative blogs an extension of the creative nonfiction genre--they're innovative, exciting, honest, and popular. Blogs are so popular, in fact, that it seems as if everyone has one: politicians, movie stars, even the Godfather behind Creative Nonfiction.

As some of you may know, CNF has been collecting and publishing the best of the blogosphere since the the inception of our annual The Best Creative Nonfiction series. And while Volume 2 makes its way to bookstores and subscribers, CNF is already fast at work compiling blogs for Volume 3--due out Summer 2009. But this time, we're doing things a bit differently.

We want you, the reader, to nominate the blogs you love.

We’re looking for: Vibrant new voices with interesting, true stories to tell. Narrative, narrative, narrative. Posts that can stand alone, 2000 words max, from 2008. Something from your own blog, from a friend’s blog, from a stranger’s blog.

The small print: We will contact individual bloggers before publication; we pay a flat $50 fee for one-time reprint rights. Deadline: October 31, 2008.

To nominate, click here.

As an added bonus, if we choose a blog you nominated, we'll send you one of our nifty "Creative Nonfiction: You Can't Make This Stuff Up" mugs.

What are you waiting for? Become a part of the CNF editorial process and nominate a blog today!

Originally conceived as part of Pittsburgh's 250th anniversary celebration, CNF's special, limited edition publication, Pittsburgh in Words, has taken on a life of its own.

Officially launched on October 2nd at an overwhelmingly successful event, the book features seven new essays by up-and-coming writers. The new essays feature an eclectic look at Pittsburgh: from Art Rooney to Ethiopian immigrants, from Myron Cope's dialect to pickle pin collectibles, and much more.

And don't forget to visit the Pittsburgh in Words website for more classic Pittsburgh stories. We've collected 14 previously published essays and book excerpts, all of which share a fascination with, “the real Steel City, the city that’s shared imaginatively by all long-term Pittsburghers. … People and things we as Pittsburghers know, whether they’re true or not.”

Not from Pittsburgh? No matter. These essays transcend region, illustrating the words of E.M. Forster: "Only connect the prose and the passion and both will be exalted..."

The website features work by Annie Dillard, Stewart O'Nan, John Edgar Wideman, Gerald Stern, Lee Gutkind, and many others!

To read the essays, click here.

We would like to go on record saying that we at CNF do not measure our self-worth by the number of online friends we keep (really, we don't). The only reason we keep profiles on MySpace and Facebook is to communicate more efficiently with you, the readers (seriously, the number of friends does not matter to us).

We like to think of ourselves as tech savvy, forward-thinking individuals, and we want to be able to contact our readers with breaking news (like the Best 3 blog nominations and time-sensitive sales) without filling inboxes with emails (one e-newsletter a month is plenty).

So, for those of you who keep profiles on either MySpace or Facebook, we ask that you please, please, please, friend us if you haven't already.