Literary Journalism in America — Week 1

There are many ways to measure the successes and failures of the first week of class. I’m not sure that inducing nightmares is one of the best. But that’s what two students reported to me early in class on Wednesday. In this case, however, I think it bodes well for the semester. The nightmares were in response to [...]

Literary Journalism in America–Syllabus

The syllabus for my course “Literary Journalism in America” (Fall 2010, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio), features writers from four unique periods in literary journalism history. While surveying the sketches written in the 1890s, we will read, among others, Stephen Crane, Lincoln Steffens, and Hutchins Hapgood. During the next wave of American literary journalism [...]

Eating Your Way to Homesickness

In the Guardian newspaper, Laura Barton uses literary journalism to convey the taste of homesickness. In “My North-south Divide” Laura tells us that she will never move back to her beloved hometown in the North of England. From the outset, she obeys the contract between writer and author; we believe that her story is true, [...]

Essays in Love

The book Essays in Love (or On Love) was first published in 1993. When he had the chance to amend it for a reprint in 2006, ‘I took the opportunity to recharacterize the book as nonfiction. As much as anything, by calling it nonfiction, I am trying to reconnect the beginning and middle of my career, trying to show that I’ve been up to much the same thing all along.’

A New Semester of Literary Journalism

An introduction to my course, “Literary Journalism in America” and the context that I teach it in at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

Poetics of Fact

Susan Greenberg has a new article about literary journalism, entitled “Poetics of Fact,” published in the August 12, 2010 issue of Times Higher Education magazine. In the piece the Roehampton University scholar showcases the 5th annual conference of the International Association for Literary Journalism Studies (which Greenberg hosted at Roehampton, 20-22 May 2010). She also [...]

Literary Journalism — The Blog

Welcome to the blog of the International Association for Literary Journalism Studies. Interested members from various countries will be posting items that focus on the practice, teaching and theory of literary journalism. As a reminder, the following distinction may be considered shorthand for how the IALJS prefers to regard literary journalism: “Journalism as literature” rather [...]