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Craft in Conversation: Following the Scent of the Story with Hyeseung Song

Hyeseung Song demonstrates incredible love through truth-telling in her debut memoir Docile: Memoirs of a Not-So-Perfect Asian Girl (Simon & Schuster, 2024). Docile explores Hyeseung’s..

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Redemption Through Re-Narration

Courtney Ann LaFaive’s second book, Follow the Signs: Searching for Linda Goodman, America’s Forgotten Astrology Queen, came out this spring through the University of Iowa..

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The Architecture of Care

Craft, Consciousness, and Ethical Form in Girlhood In Girlhood, Melissa Febos does not merely recount the experience of growing up female; she constructs an ethical..

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Mosaic: Craft as Discrete Infinity

I. The Writer’s Life Certain people tend to be good listeners. Writers, for example. The writer might hear how, when you swing the fence shut,..

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Changing the Script: A Love Letter to Baltimore

An Interview with Kate Crane, Author of What Ever Happened to Eddy Crane? Sometimes the algorithm works the way it’s supposed to. On an evening..

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The Odyssey of Recollection; or, What a Vampire Can Teach Us about the Craft of Memoir

You wouldn’t expect a show centered on undead, blood-drinking, immortal creatures of the night to be the perfect model for how to write personal narrative,..

Featured Essays & Reviews

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Craft in Conversation: Talking Femininity, Fragments, Frankness, and Form with Amy Berkowitz

Amy Berkowitz asks us what it means to be poetic. In her memoir Tender Points (Nightboat Books, 2019), they take the reader through a series..
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Writer-Teacher, Teacher-Writer? A Reflection from the Creative Nonfiction Classroom

Many writers earn their living doing something that isn’t writing. We have jobs that are writing-adjacent or that otherwise make use of our skills and..
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Between the Claim and the Designation

Criticism has long been imagined as a neutral sorting mechanism—a procedure through which the good is separated from the bad by something other than desire...
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Craft in Conversation: Melanie Hall Interviews Sarah Minor

Sarah Minor is breaking boundaries on the essay form. Her debut collection, Bright Archive, combines research, memory, interview, and unconventional visual elements in a wonderful..

Featured Interviews

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Truth and Vulnerability: An Annotated Interview with Lauren Westerfield

Lauren Westerfield is no stranger to the complexities of writing “the true story.”
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Speculation as Art: Mapping Possibilities to Tell Elusive Stories

A decade ago, I visited the Angel Island Immigration Station, the California port of entry where, between 1910 and 1940, Chinese immigrants were detained under..
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In Praise of an Agentive Woman

A review of Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free, a biography by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson “The status of womanhood, like the tides of..
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2025 Nonfiction Round Up

Last year, true’s editors and contributors offered up their favorite nonfiction books, articles, and podcasts consumed in 2024. We’re back with a fresh list of..
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Writing From Within the Experience: An Annotated Interview with Jeannie Vanasco

Jeannie Vanasco is no stranger to writing her way through the hardest of material. Her debut memoir, The Glass Eye (Tin House, 2017), was a..
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Cracking Open: Accessing Vulnerability as an Emerging Writer

One thing people don’t tell you about college is how quickly you have to get used to crying in public. In high school, I had..

From the Pages of Proximity

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Truth and Vulnerability: An Annotated Interview with Lauren Westerfield

Lauren Westerfield is no stranger to the complexities of writing “the true story.”
S

Speculation as Art: Mapping Possibilities to Tell Elusive Stories

A decade ago, I visited the Angel Island Immigration Station, the California port of entry where, between 1910 and 1940, Chinese immigrants were detained under..
I

In Praise of an Agentive Woman

A review of Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free, a biography by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson “The status of womanhood, like the tides of..
A photo of an open book where you only see the bottom of the book and the back cover overlayed on a photo of wood grain.2

2025 Nonfiction Round Up

Last year, true’s editors and contributors offered up their favorite nonfiction books, articles, and podcasts consumed in 2024. We’re back with a fresh list of..
W

Writing From Within the Experience: An Annotated Interview with Jeannie Vanasco

Jeannie Vanasco is no stranger to writing her way through the hardest of material. Her debut memoir, The Glass Eye (Tin House, 2017), was a..
C

Cracking Open: Accessing Vulnerability as an Emerging Writer

One thing people don’t tell you about college is how quickly you have to get used to crying in public. In high school, I had..