Nonfiction, the Teaching of Writing, and the Influence of Richard Lloyd-Jones

This edited collection explores an important development in the teaching of writing over the last half century: the rise of creative nonfiction, a vast terrain of genres from memoir and personal essays to nature and travel writing to literary journalism, works grounded in true experiences but inflected by a creative sensibility. Celebrating the influence of Richard Lloyd-Jones--long-time chair of the English Department at the University of Iowa, president of NCTE, chair of CCCC, and the winner of CCCC’s first Exemplar Award--the essays in this collection reveal a person whose efforts, largely behind the scenes, were instrumental in the growth of creative nonfiction. Variously historical and reflective, philosophical and political, the essays offer an expansive vision for teaching writing, one shaped by teachers’ experiences as writers themselves, and all embodying in style and voice a focus on the full arts of written language.

Doug Hesse is Professor of Writing and University Distinguished Scholar at The University of Denver, where he has served as Founding Executive Director of Writing. He has been president of the National Council of Teachers of English, chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, president of both the Council of Writing Program Administrators, and chair of the MLA Division on Teaching. Currently he is chair of the Association of Writing Across the Curriculum and of the MLA Forum on Nonfiction. He is co-author of four books, including Creating Nonfiction (with Becky Bradway), and more than ninety essays and chapters, including in Fourth Genre, College English, College Composition and Communication, and Writing on the Edge. He has won the Donald Murray Prize for creative nonfiction and been listed among ＂Notable Essays＂ in Best American Essays.

Laura Julier was longtime editor of the award-winning literary journal Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction. Simultaneously, she directed the undergraduate major in professional writing at Michigan State University, where she was Professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures. She led faculty development in writing across campus, directing the Faculty Writing Project, and won the Michigan Campus Compact Outstanding Faculty Award. Her numerous publications include personal essays and articles/chapters about service learning and creative nonfiction.