What is the Creative Nonfiction Collective?
Early in April 2006, two dozen of Canada’s leading professional nonfiction writers met at the Banff Centre for the Arts and voted to register the CREATIVE NONFICTION COLLECTIVE as a non-profit organization under the Societies Act of Alberta. The group had been meeting informally since 2004—when Betsy Warland and I sent out an invitation to nonfiction writers to meet in Banff—to explore the range and potential of this rapidly growing genre, and to debate the social, cultural and ethical issues that define and preoccupy the genre and its practitioners. “We have top-notch writers who tackle these issues, but many are still being ignored,” I said at the time. “Yet the documentary genre in all the arts is really ‘hot’ right now, and Canadian readers need to know how our nonfiction writers are contributing to that excitement.” Since then, the Collective has steadily grown, in listserv subscribers, in formal membership, and in the popularity of our annual conference. Between conferences, crea
Related Questions
- I published a book that is neither fiction nor poetry nor creative nonfiction (eg., a cookbook or a car repair manual or an ESL textbook). Am I eligible for the fellowship?
- Do 08C:001 Creative Writing Studio Workshop and 08N:020 Introduction to Creative Nonfiction courses count as prerequisites to the Writers’ House Seminars?
- Why do creative nonfiction writers in Canada need their own organization?
