Creative Nonfiction Winter 2015

JESSICA HANDLER is the author of Braving the Fire: A Guide to Writing About Grief and Loss and Invisible Sisters: A Memoir. Her nonfiction has appeared on NPR and in Tin House, Drunken Boat, Brevity, Newsweek, the Washington Post, and More magazine. She works with writers through CNF’s online classes and mentoring program. FROM OUR VERY FIRST endeavors in creative writing, we’re told to write what we know. As nonfiction writers, we’re proud of our fealty to the truth. We don’t make things up. Or, if we do make things up, we employ the deftness and elegance of signal phrases. We write, I imagine. Or, I believed. We write, She told me, because the fact is that she did, and the truth conveyed to us is hers (whoever she may be).…

DEREK HINCKLEY is a student in the MFA program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He is currently working on a thematically linked collection of essays centered on three years he spent teaching English at an underperforming high school in rural Mississippi. ACCOUNTANT Summer 2000 It’s hard to reconcile the father I know with the vibrant young man he describes in his stories of adventure and cunning. I was born when he was in his late thirties, and by the time I was equipped to start making lasting memories of him, he was solidly middle-aged and comfortable in a deep rut. He sat behind home plate at my Little League games, reading a book, only taking a break when I came up to bat. We spent weekends going to the…

ALTHOUGH MOST OF US have at least a few oft-told family stories, most families also contain some mysteries, and getting to the “real” story can be a daunting task. Sometimes, there’s simply no record of the past; some families (or family members) guard their secrets carefully. In this issue, we explore the challenges of researching and writing about family from three very different angles. MAGGIE MESSITT recounts her search for a lost aunt and reflects on the books and documentary films that helped her understand how to write with an absent co-author. SEJAL H. PATEL travels to the rural Indian village where her father grew up and applies skills she’s honed as a trial lawyer to build a complete picture of her father’s undocumented past. And MAGGIE MERTENS, struggling to…

JACQUELINE KIRKPATRICK lives in Albany, New York. Her work has appeared in Nailed, South85 Journal, and Burningword. She is also an editor at Pine Hills Review. ✓ A·NON·Y·MOUS \Ə-’NÄ-NƏ-MƏS\ Not identified by name; of unknown name. Having no outstanding, individual, or unusual features; unremarkable or impersonal. Synonyms: nameless—unidentified—unnamed ✓ I am an organ donor. I became a donor in 2000. Over 120,000 people are currently in need of an organ transplant. Thousands die every year waiting for the perfect match. When I was thirteen, my father told me he was going to donate his body when he died. I asked him not to. I told him it would be weird if his heart was in someone else. He told me I would never even know what parts of him they…

MARISSA LANDRIGAN’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Atlantic, Creative Nonfiction, Orion, Guernica, The Inquisitive Eater, Render, and elsewhere. She is the author of the food memoir The Vegetarian’s Guide to Eating Meat; curates the Pittsburgh-based food reading series, Acquired Taste; and currently teaches writing at the University of Pittsburgh–Johnstown. IN DECEMBER 2008 there was a massive ice storm in Merrimack, New Hampshire, where my family lives. The cold froze the power lines, cutting electricity to almost the entire town for two weeks, right before Christmas. My parents and grandparents frantically tried to salvage five pounds of handmade ravioli from the basement freezer, tossing the Ziploc bags out into waist-high snowbanks in the backyard. But the freeze was too deep; it destroyed the delicate ricotta and spiced ground…

The Language of Baklava DIANA ABU-JABER (Anchor Books, 2005) Abu-Jaber gives a sensuous description of what it was to be raised by a Jordanian immigrant father, who cooked to remember where he came from. Her father’s stories of his Jordanian past, Abu-Jaber writes, were almost always about something larger: “grace, difference, faith, love.” This memoir, complete with Middle Eastern recipes for shish kabob, lentil soup, and lamb kofta, is rich with tastes of home, family, and place. Eating Wildly: Foraging for Life, Love and the Perfect Meal AVA CHIN (Simon & Schuster, 2014) Chin’s memoir, which grew from her New York Times “Urban Forager” column, includes a wealth of information on finding, harvesting, and preparing wild foods, even in the city. Raised by a single mother and Chinese grandparents, Chin…