Creative non-fiction

Ben, who knows almost everything about literature in a good, kind way, tried to explain creative non-fiction to me yesterday.

Ben, a poet and in all other ways a positive, generous person, mostly had to tell me what it was by what it isn't. I recall that the word, "narrative" was used a lot and that creative non-fiction could be as wretched as its literary progenitor, fiction.

It seems like a pretty big tent--creative non-fiction--that could be big enough for both Laurence Sterne and Samuel Beckett, but not for James Joyce, who wrote fiction except when writing poetry.

It's such an exciting and popular new genre of literature that universities are offering MFA programs where one can specialize in the study and composition of creative non-fiction.

As soon as Ben and I concluded our conversation, I went to my desk and tried to write some creative non-fiction, with poor result and a bump on the back of my head.