A Quote by Lee Gutkind

I discovered that I, a writer of what is known as creative nonfiction, could do the research and bridge the gap in my books and lectures through true storytelling. This is not 'dumbing down' or writing for eighth graders. It is writing for readers across cultures, age barriers, social and political landscapes.

Lee Gutkind

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Across Age Barriers Books Bridge Could Creative Creative Nonfiction Cultures Discovered Down Dumbing Down Eighth Eighth Grade Gap Known Landscapes Lectures Nonfiction Political Readers Research Social Storytelling Through True True Story Writer Writing

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Lee Gutkind
American - Writer

When you're researching things that have happened, the clear narrative arc is not there already. This is the problem of writing nonfiction for me - writing nonfiction which is about serious subjects and has serious political and social points to make, yet which is meant to be popular to a degree - what happens when the facts don't fit a convenient narrative arc? I guess that for a lot of nonfiction writers that is a central challenge.

Misha Glenny

The most reward experience is having another writer come up to you and say that they started writing because they read my books. That is how writing as a profession continues: readers becomes writers who inspire new readers.

Michael Scott

As I started to read nonfiction in the mid '70s, I discovered, holy cow, there was a lot of imaginative nonfiction. Not the kind where people use composite characters and invented quotes. I hate that kind of nonfiction. But imaginative in the sense that good writing and unexpected structure and vivid reporting could be combined with presenting facts.

David Quammen

Everyone else thinks I'm a nonfiction writer. I think it's because my nonfiction is easier to find. But I write both in equal measure. I love writing fiction because I can totally lose myself, and I get to make up the rules of the world that I'm writing.

Roxane Gay

When I'm writing books, something weird happens; and the result is the books contain a large amount of what you could call 'supernaturalism.' As a writer, I find I need that to explain the world I'm writing about.

Salman Rushdie

I'm clearly most well known for my music. Eventually, ultimately, I'll be writing books. I'm still writing articles now. I just consider myself a writer.

Alanis Morissette

That is one thing I am sure of amid my many uncertainties regarding the literary vocation: deep inside, a writer feels that writing is the best thing that ever happened to him, or could ever happen to him, because as far as he is concerned, writing is the best possible way of life, never mind the social, political, or financial rewards of what he might achieve through it.

Mario Vargas Llosa

I am of the opinion that I am not a political writer, and, moreover, that as far as true literature is concerned, there actually are no political writers. I think that my writing is no more political than ancient Greek theatre. I would have become the writer I am in any political regime.

Ismail Kadare

If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.

Ernest Hemingway

I could not write my books without the library's help. Even with the ease of Internet research, I find books to be indispensable when I am writing. ... Books make me laugh, cry, and think. They give me insight into history, and into the lives of people in other cultures. They help me make important decisions, and they provide endless entertainment. Hooray for libraries!

Peg Kehret

Writing fiction is for me a fraught business, an occasion of daily dread for at least the first half of the novel, and sometimes all the way through. The work process is totally different from writing nonfiction. You have to sit down every day and make it up.

Joan Didion

There's something about the idea of writing, and thinking about writing as a form of prayer - the way as a writer you call out into the world and throw your words into the world. You're not praying to a god, but you're almost conjuring a reader to arrive. That's what books do: they're an invitation to readers.

Ruth Ozeki

Discovery still happens in the writing. You start in nonfiction with a whole lot more going for you, because all the discovery isn't waiting to be made. You've made some of it in the research. As you get deeper into a piece and do more research, the notes are in the direction of the piece - you're actually writing it.

Joan Didion

I do not believe that it is necessarily the duty of the writer to give a voice to his community. If a writer is true to his vocation, to his or her vocation, the very process of creativity enlarges these human horizons. It provides insights, even when you're not writing, when your writing's not dealing with a concrete political situation.

Wole Soyinka

I didn't intend to be writing - the writer's life. I was just writing what came to me at the time, but it is a map of how this writer had to break many barriers to find, not a room of her own, but a house of her own.

Sandra Cisneros

I did not believe political directives could be successfully applied to creative writing . . . not to poetry or fiction, which to be valid had to express as truthfully as possible the individual emotions and reactions of the writer.

Langston Hughes

A Quote by Lee Gutkind

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