Judith Kitchen & Mary Paumier Jones, Editors
In Short
A Collection of Brief Creative Nonfiction
with a Preface by Bernard Cooper
Welcome to the first anthology to identify and celebrate a new nonfiction
form: the Short!
Something is going on out there. Almost simultaneously, many of our finest
writers are experimenting with a new nonfiction form: brief pieces that are
literary and personal rather than informational, complete in themselves, and
short—very short. Although the form has not had a name until now, the
writers who are atrracted to it include the known—Tim O'Brien, Barry
Lopez, Terry Tempest Williams, Michael Ondaatje—as well as just-discovered
voices in the field of creative nonfiction, a genre that is transforming the
essay.
Delights and surprises await the reader in this rich gathering of Shorts
(ranging from several paragraphs to two thousand words). From Diane Ackerman's
fascination with hummingbirds, to Andrei Codrescu's idiosyncratic view of
nostalgia, to Albert Goldbarth's free-wheeling riff on the universe, each
Short becomes a sharply focused lens on an outer world or an inner
sensibility.
In Short, reflecting almost every way in which nonfiction can be
written, is for all readers (and writers) who thrive on imaginative play
and aesthetic satisfaction. Pick up this book; open it up. See if you can
resist it.
"The selection of authors is impressive, and the work consistently
engaging. I'm already planning classes around In Short."—Bernard
Cooper
Judith Kitchen lives in Brockport, New York. Mary Paumier Jones
lives in Rochester. Kitchen, author of a collection of essays, Only the
Dance, is poetry reviewer for Georgia Review. Jones, who teaches
creative nonfiction, has a degree in library science.
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