B.J. Hollars provides a multifaceted approach to nonfiction that has a direct application to the writing classroom. Contributions from leading literary nonfiction writers like Michael Martone, Wendy Rawlings, and Dinty Moore make this book a must for any literary nonfiction class.
Blurring the Boundaries
Explorations to the Fringes of Nonfiction
Edited by B. J. Hollars
Paperback
2013.280 pp.
978-0-8032-3648-6
$30.00
Contemporary discussions on nonfiction are often riddled with questions about the boundaries between truth and memory, honesty and artifice, facts and lies. Just how much truth is in nonfiction? How much is a lie? Blurring the Boundaries sets out to answer such questions while simultaneously exploring the limits of the form.
This collection features twenty genre-bending essays from today’s most renowned teachers and writers—including original work from Michael Martone, Marcia Aldrich, Dinty W. Moore, Lia Purpura, and Robin Hemley, among others. These essays experiment with structure, style, and subject matter, and each is accompanied by the writer’s personal reflection on the work itself, illuminating his or her struggles along the way. As these innovative writers stretch the limits of genre, they take us with them, offering readers a front-row seat to an ever-evolving form.
Readers also receive a practical approach to craft thanks to the unique writing exercises provided by the writers themselves. Part groundbreaking nonfiction collection, part writing reference, Blurring the Boundaries serves as the ideal book for literary lovers and practitioners of the craft.
B.J. Hollars is an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. He is the author of two books of nonfiction, Thirteen Loops: Race, Violence, and the Last Lynching in America and Opening the Doors: The Desegregation of the University of Alabama and the Fight for Civil Rights in Tuscaloosa, as well as a collection of stories, Sightings.