Contemporary Memoir: A 21st-Century Genre Ideal for Teens

22 English Journal 99.4 (2010): 22–29 by a variety of new terms such as literary nonfiction, creative nonfiction, and documentary narrative. What distinguished these writings from conventional factual and informational texts was that they were not only well-researched accounts of real events or experiences but also artful narratives. They employed literary techniques borrowed from modern and postmodern novelists, including using distinguishable first-person voice, posing questions, and often injecting uncertainties and ruminations into their factual texts. Writers such as Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Annie Dillard, Loren Eiseley, Michael Herr, John Hersey, and Lewis Thomas—all writers of bestselling nonfiction books—began to find themselves named as originators of a new genre. This genre of literary nonfiction continues to take shape in many forms: reportage, personal essay, biography, and memoir. Subgenres of literary nonfiction (LN) include nature, travel, and science writing, as well as CM. Writers of LN and CM tackle topics such as prison riots and life (e.g., Baca [CM]; Earley [LN]), environmental challenges (e.g., Ray [CM]; Gore [LN]), violence in American high schools (e.g., Hunter-Gault [CM]; Cullen [LN]), wilderness hiking and experiences (e.g., Bryson [CM]; Lopez [LN]), and the benefits of eating locally grown food (e.g., Kingsolver [CM]; Pollan [LN]).