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The Conversations We Weren’t Meant to Hear

“As both a nonfiction writer and novelist, I’ve discovered that these overheard conversations contain the most authentic speech, revealing their generational differences and cultural identities.”

Featured Essays & Reviews

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Gathering Speed and Complexity

A Primer for Craft in Literary Journalism: "In this understanding, craft has a bigger job to do than to enthrall or entertain, to make a true story read like fiction or feel like fantasy. In this understanding, creativity is part of the journalism, working in service to ideas, not in service of earning a label. We can’t separate the literary from the journalism at all."
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Writing on Memory, Considering When To Do So

"All genres have a central expectation, and that of memoir is wisdom," writes Kutlay in this meditation on history, memory, and writing about ourselves.
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Circling Back: Return and Recursivity in Nature-Based Memoir

"All memory is a circling back to moments of earlier experience," writes Kayann Short as she evaluates the importance of return in ecobiography.
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2024 Nonfiction Round Up

Here's what our contributors and editors loved in 2024 and what they're excited for in 2025.
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The Endurance of A Classic

"While this fear is nothing compared to experiencing war, I worry that the circumstances will change me completely, as they changed him." - a 17-year old Kazakh student reflects on All Quiet on the Western Front
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Objects of Affection

"I can’t stop thinking about how objects hold me. How they alter the way I carry myself in a new room. Or hug me when surrounded by strangers."
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Obscured Truth: A Review of Sheila Heti’s Alphabetical Diaries

An exercise in experimentation, Sheila Heti’s Alphabetical Diaries started as lines from the author’s diary, which she then entered into an Excel spreadsheet, alphabetized, and..
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Love the Creature

“And now, once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper. I have an affection for it…But this is for myself; my readers..
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How Many Rejections Does It Take To Get Published?

They said, “Ten percent of submissions get published.” I heard, “Nine out of every ten submissions gets rejected.” So, I decided I’d get one hundred..
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No Le Digas A Nadie. Don’t Tell Anyone.

“No le digas a nadie” is a threat that happens in almost every conversation I have with my mom. It’s synonymous with, “Don’t tell another..
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When the Arc is Too Small

When a narrative arc doesn't work, how do we find a structure for a work of narrative nonfiction?
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Prose and Connotations

"It seems like such a small thing to consider, with all of the other elements writers are asked to pay attention to, but I know I need to consider the specific connotations of my words," writes Jenny Hughes.
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That One Time A Writer Signed All My Books

How Andi Stout found a literary community and how it makes her a better writer: An Essay on Literary Citizenship.
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All of Us Ghosts

"This is how ghosts represent trans people. Cactus Country made me realize nonbinariness was a spirit that wanted me to notice it," writes August Owens Grimm in their review essay of Zöe Bossiere's new memoir.
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The Writing Life: How Teaching Helped Me Reclaim My Voice

Olga Katsovskiy explores getting over the writer's block she faced after her dad's death through teaching others to "find the question that needs to be answered."
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Meeting the Complexity of Grief

Pam Anderson shows how B.J. Hollars takes on the complex task of writing about grief without sounding cliche or trite in his memoir, Year of Plenty: A Family's Season of Grief.
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Truth, Shame, and Writing A Memoir

Jonathan Corcoran explores how shame and family secrets nearly prevented him from writing his memoir.
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What If I’m Right About Being Trans

Writer Rey Katz reflects on the importance of language in trans narratives in this review of Schulyer Bailar's book He/She/They.
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When the Writing Is the Grieving

After the death of her husband, Dominque Conway reflects on words, grief, and writing.
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Rewriting Your Code

College junior Aniya Carrington writes about what happens when you're forced to be someone you’re not in order to survive. 
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Whom Are We To Judge?

Michael Igoe explores writing about others and what it does to ourselves.
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Becoming Better Together: How I Help Students Magnify the Deeper Meaning of a Text

As a writer and teacher, Donna Lewis Johnson sees herself and her students as literary detectives, reading texts closely in order to notice the telling details that illuminate the characters, setting, and plot moments.
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Must I forget my first language to move beyond my past?

Parisa Saranj reflects on abandoning Persian, her first language, to write and think exclusively in English, both as a method of embracing her life in the US and abandoning her past in Iran.
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The Body as Home: Traversing Gender to Find Peace

A review of Krys Malcom Belc's The Natural Mother of the Child by Megan Reilley.
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Every Woman Keeps a Flame Against the Wind

An essay by Kristen Millares Young.
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Neighborhood Statistics

An essay by Nicholas Powers.
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I Am Not in My Body

An essay by Daisuke Shen.
An ongoing collection of true stories.
Welcome to the new home of true! Originally the blog for Proximity, true has become a space for bi-weekly conversations around nonfiction storytelling, where you’ll find essays, writing on craft, reviews, interviews, and more. This is also a space where you can find some of Proximity's best essays, narrative journalism, documentary photo essays, and audio storytelling. Proximity is currently on hiatus.

Featured Interviews

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How To Make Narrative Nonfiction Span Centuries 

Laura Tillman speaks with Nick Tabor about his debut narrative nonfiction book "Africatown," which spans centuries yet feels effortless in its telling.
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Transparency in Journalism Through the “I”

Laura Jane Willoughby talks with author Ted Conover about what it means to be an immersion reporter.
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In Favor of Not Understanding

An interview with Olga Mikolaivna about her chapbook cities as fathers is a dialogue about the worth and definition of art, of place, of linguistic selfhood.
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How (Not) To Define A Lyric Essay

Heidi Czerwiec and Erica Trabold explore the function of lyric essays, and how lyric essay collections are illuminating this style of nonfiction writing.
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A Glimmer of Hope Among the Ruins

Shannon Tsonis talks with Kristine Ervin and reflects on her new book, Rabbit Heart, a memoir not unlike her own.
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Wading Through Research: An Annotated Interview with Vicki Valosik

In this annotated interview, Swimming Pretty author Vicki Valosik talks about how she dove into an ocean of primary sources and kept her head above the water.
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Bringing the Past Forward

Judy Goldman speaks with Stephanie Clare Smith about her memoir Everywhere the Undrowned and why the past is never behind us.
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The Journalist in Me: An Annotated Interview with Putsata Reang

By her own admission, Putsata Reang has an “insatiable appetite for research.”
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The Power of Crafting Your Own Beginning: A Talk with Debut Author Suzette Mullen

Suzette Mullen shares how she stepped off the straight path of her life and onto the winding one that became her memoir.
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How Loneliness Manifests

Cija Jefferson speaks with Athena Dixon about her new book of essays, The Loneliness Files, and what it means to find connections inside and outside of writing.
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You have to do what works for you.

A conversation with Sufiya Abdur-Rahman about her deeply reported and deeply personal memoir, Heir to the Crescent Moon.
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The UFO Idea: An Annotated Interview with Gideon Lewis-Kraus

New Yorker Writer Gideon Lewis-Kraus came to write about UFOs with some reluctance.
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Saumya & the Mountain: One Story, Two Ways

A conversation between authors Kristina Gaddy and Saumya Roy on the question at the heart of so many narrative journalists: Should we, or under what circumstances should we, include ourselves in our writing?
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My Middle Name was Wimberley: An Annotated Interview with Nicholas Casey

Brandon Arvesen and NYT Editor Nicholas Casey discuss the essay, “Finding my Father” and the process of fact-decking family stories.
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The Particulars of How

Author Kristina Gaddy joins debut author and journalist Neda Toloui-Semnani to discuss trauma writing, the journalist's experience with memoir, and her nonlinear exploration of family history.
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On Race, Secrets, & Love: An interview with E. Dolores Johnson

Author Sonya Lea and debut memoirist E. Dolores Johnson discuss 'Say I'm Dead,' a family memoir of race, secrets, and love.
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Finding Solace Among the Birds: A Conversation with Joshua McKerrow About Making Art from Grief

Megan Reilley and Photojournalist Joshua McKerrow discuss "Today's Birds," and the act of creating through grief.
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Memoir, Essay, and the Crucible of Meaning: An Interview with Joanna Eleftheriou

Bruce I. Friedland and essayist Joanna Eleftheriou discuss trauma, identity, and place in the writing of 'This Way Back.'
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Images Are Text: A Conversation About Comics With Miriam Libicki

Comics Scholar Kevin Haworth sits down with Miriam Libicki to discuss 'Toward a Hot Jew," and her approach to creating essays in comics form.
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Poems That Bring You Joy

“Why do people turn to poetry in tumultuous times?” is one of the most common questions poet Maggie Smith been asked about her poem “Good Bones” -- Why poems? Why now?
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(Re)using Found Forms: The Hermit Crab Essay

From the front a hermit crab looks like a hand, a red-fingered fist, curling out of a shell. This seems an appropriate metaphor for a hermit crab essay," writes essayist Randon Billings Noble.

From the Pages of Proximity

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Announcing the 2024 Proximity Prize in Personal Essay

We are thrilled to announce the winners of our 2024 Proximity Prize in Personal Essay. Daniel M. Lavery was the judge, and he told us,..
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Motherlove and Memory

[Winner of the 2024 Proximity Prize] Not much can prepare you for the day when you greet your mother and she pulls back in alarm. When you place your hand gently on her shoulder, look into her eyes, and she returns your gaze with suspicion and fear. When saying "It's me," fails to suggest a hint of familiarity. 
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Swim Lessons

[Runner-Up for the 2024 Proximity Prize] They checked our military IDs as they stood in camouflage outside our high school and slung M-16 machine guns around their shoulders. And their eyes lingered a little too long on shy, sophomore girls standing in line. 
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Already We Are Less Than Ever Before

[Winner of the 2018 Proximity Essay Prize] Fereidoun M. Esfandiary hypothesized the sun was the heart of utopia. He changed his name to FM-2030 to mark the year he’d turn 100. Interviewed by Larry King, FM-2030 wears a heavy white robe and says his new name is “neat.
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The Secret to Everything

[First Runner-Up 2018 Proximity Essay Prize] Here in the last slip of rural country near Raleigh, I drive slowly down a gravel road, unsure if I’m going in the right direction. The road gradually becomes dirt: two tire ruts divided by a hump of grass. Sparse rows of pine trees line both sides of the narrow road. I’m a social worker, and I’m making an early morning visit, a new referral to start the day. This one a possible suicide case—I hate suicide cases.
Write for true
We publish essays and writing on the craft of nonfiction in its many forms, as well as reviews, interviews, and criticism. We are especially interested in the intersection of reporting and narrative; how nonfiction is and isn’t different from other genres; how we can make true stories compelling; and explorations of highly reflective, emotional, and layered work that exposes a truth about shared experiences in an exulting and punishing world. Email us: editors@truemag.org