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| Acknowledgments | |
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| Introduction: How to Read This Book | |
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| What Is Creative Nonfiction? | |
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| The Birth of the Godfather | |
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| The Definition Debate | |
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| What Is It-Or Isn't It? | |
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| Who Coined the Term "Creative Nonfiction"? | |
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| The Fastest-Growing Genre | |
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| Subgenres | |
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| Crossing Genres | |
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| Poetry Is (Often) Creative Nonfiction | |
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| Flexibility, Freedom, and the Larger Truth | |
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| Truth or… | |
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| Hall of Fame of Fakers | |
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| Truth and Fact | |
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| Fact Checking | |
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| Fact Checking Sedaris | |
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| Have I Totally D'Agata-ed This? | |
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| Credibility-and Correctness | |
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| What About the BOTS? | |
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| Interesting Reading | |
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| Who Will Take Charge? | |
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| The Creative Nonfiction Police | |
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| The Objectivity Debate | |
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| Composites | |
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| Compression | |
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| Manufacturing Dialogue | |
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| Name Changing | |
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| Libel, Defamation-and Writing About the Dead | |
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| Interesting but Not So Amusing Fudging | |
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| Share Your Work with Your Subjects | |
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| Covering Yourself | |
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| Final Thoughts About Ethical, Legal, and Moral Boundaries | |
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| Schedules | |
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| Slave to Routine | |
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| Passion and Practice | |
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| The Rope Test | |
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| Fall Down Nine Times-Get Up Ten | |
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| A Final Word About Schedules | |
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| The Creative Nonfiction Pendulum: From Personal to Public | |
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| The Personal: That Kiss That Caused the Craze | |
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| The Memoir Craze | |
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| Between Memoir and Autobiography | |
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| Don't Get Tangled in Terminology | |
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| The Public or "Big Idea� | |
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| The Universal Chord: When Personal and Public Come Together | |
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| Widening the Pendulum's Swing | |
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| The Creative Nonfiction Way of Life | |
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| From Dream to Reality | |
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| Single-Subject Books | |
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| Through Immersion, a Writer Can See the Story As It Happens | |
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| Futures or "Idea" Book | |
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| Selecting Subjects to Write About | |
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| Parachuting | |
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| What Immersion Is Really About: People | |
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| More About Immersion | |
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| Literary Sports Note | |
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| The Bitter Better End | |
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| The Tribulations of the Writer at Work | |
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| Anxiety | |
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| Should You Be Part of the Action? | |
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| Documenting the Immersion | |
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| Shirt Boards and Fancy Duds | |
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| It's the Story, Stupid | |
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| Thomas and Linda and the Power of the Story | |
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| The Story Behind the Story | |
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| It's the Information, Stupid! | |
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| And Finally, a Gentle Reminder | |
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| The Writing and Revising and Writing and Revising Part: How to Do It | |
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| Introduction to Part II | |
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| How to Read | |
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| Reading Over Your Reader's Shoulder | |
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| I Remember Mama | |
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| Reading with a Writer's Eye | |
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| The Building Blocks | |
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| The Yellow (Or Highlighting) Test | |
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| A Famous and Memorable Scene | |
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| To Highlight or Not to Highlight: That is the Question | |
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| Something Always Happens | |
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| Endings | |
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| Dialogue and Description | |
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| Intimate Details | |
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| A Famous Intimate Detail | |
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| More Examples of Intimate or Specific Detail | |
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| An Important Note About Interviewing | |
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| Does Absence of the Writer Mean Absence of Detail-Or a Weakness in the Story? | |
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| Inner Point of View | |
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| The Creative Nonfiction Dance | |
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| Reminder: Writing Is Revision | |
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| Now Let's Dance | |
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| "Difficult Decisions� by Lee Gutkind | |
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| Follow-up Commentary | |
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| "Three Spheres� by Lauren Slater | |
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| Highlighting "Three Spheres" and "Yellow Taxi" | |
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| "Yellow Taxi," by Eve Joseph | |
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| Reflection | |
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| Dealing with the Dead | |
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| Recreation or "Reconstruction"? | |
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| How Did It Happen? | |
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| The Shocking Truth About the New York Times | |
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| The Narrative Line and the Hook | |
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| "Fixing Nemo" | |
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| Plunging the Reader into the Story | |
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| Background Means What It Says: In the Back | |
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| The Story Determines the Research Information-The Facts-You Gather and Provide | |
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| Framing: The Second Part of Structure (After Scenes) | |
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| As Part of the Frame, There's Something at Stake | |
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| Altering Chronology | |
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| Parallel Narratives | |
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| Don't Make Promises You Can't Keep | |
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| Main Point of Focus | |
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| Frame Reflects Focus | |
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| Stories (Scenes) Are Elastic | |
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| First Lede/Real Lead: A Creative Nonfiction Experiment Precipitated by Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald | |
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| Clarity and Question Marks | |
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| The Drawer Phase | |
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| Remember That Writing Is Revision | |
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| Now That I Know Everything I Ever Wanted to Know About Creative Nonfiction, What Happens Next? | |
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| MFA in the USA | |
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| Publish or Perish | |
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| Don't Worry, Be Happy-and Smart | |
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| A Final Word: Read this Book Again | |
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| Appendix: Then and Now: Great (And Not So Great) Moments in Creative Nonfiction, 1993-2010 | |
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| Bibliography | |
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| Permissions | |
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| Index | |