DU Creative Nonfiction Journal

What is Creative Nonfiction?

Creative nonfiction describes a genre of writing based on or referring to real life, with a focus on creative prose over academic writing. It’s a blanket term encompassing memoirs, opinion pieces, open letters, personal essays, biographies, and much more. Creative nonfiction has often been referred to as the “fourth genre” by publication agencies alongside poetry, drama, and fiction. At the heart of creative nonfiction is the desire to infuse explanations of the world with the author’s personal experiences or ways of understanding, making creative nonfiction a vulnerable and honest genre. Authors of note within the creative nonfiction genre include Virginia Woolf, Joan Didion, James Baldwin, and Maya Angelou. If you have written something that you wish to submit but can’t decide if it falls in our specifications, feel free to ask us!