But quite recently, I have been traveling the country on “The Godfather Tour,” reading from my new book, “Forever Fat: Essays by the Godfather,” and giving workshops and lectures about this exciting way of writing and interpreting nonfiction, and the tone of response has been decidedly different. In the beginning, there were the inevitable questions and complaints surrounding the concept of creativity. Over the past 10 years, I have discussed the genre and the meaning of the term at colleges and universities and conferences in the United States, Europe and Australia. But there is also an explosion of brilliant nonfiction prose being written today by people who can reveal their feelings, or the feelings of the people about whom they are writing, while communicating compelling information and striking some sort of universality that touches readers in unforgettable and life-changing ways.

I am not disputing the overabundance of “navel gazers”-inward and self-obsessed writers-or that there has been a craze for this personal (sometimes too-personal) writing as of late, or denying the existence of overly imaginative, undisciplined writers encouraged by a misguided interpretation of the word creative. Creative nonfiction means what it says: We are attempting, as writers, to show imagination, to demonstrate artistic and intellectual inventiveness and still remain true to the factual integrity of the piece we are writing. What does it mean to be creative? And what is so difficult or terrible about contemplating the term? Nonfiction writers aren’t boasting or bragging by utilizing the word in describing what we do- creative nonfiction-and it is not a term that we have coined randomly. What does it mean to be creative? And what is so difficult or terrible about contemplating the term? Nonfiction writers aren’t boasting or bragging by utilizing the word in describing what we do-creative nonfiction-and it is not a term that we have coined randomly.

Artful ashes complaints