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Presents an interview with William E. Coles, Jr. Notes that his writings on composition are among the earliest and best examples of creative nonfiction in composition studies. (SG)

Contends that to tell one's own true story, to write personal creative nonfiction, is to tell other people's true stories as well. Notes that because of an author's insistence on her own perspective, creative nonfiction is not fair, but it is true. Concludes that the primary aim of creative nonfiction is to tell a good story. (PM)

Notes that because creative nonfiction exists at the boundary between fiction and nonfiction, reality and recreations of reality, and emotional and factual truth, it raises vexing issues. Discusses what carries more weight: the responsibility to a participant in a story or to the larger story of which she is an important part. Wonders if telling any story, no matter how honest and revealing, is worth creating pain in someone's life. (PM)

Examines the question of whether writers have to stick to literal facts of a story. Contends that the type of memoir a writer produces is determined in part by that writer's sensibility, as well as by how that writer views the genre. Concludes that the emotional truths of memoirs are often better served by how they are remembered than by how they happened. (PM)

Queries Kingston about her fiction and nonfiction writing--her influences, how being Chinese American has shaped her, her thoughts about history, and her ideas on the writing process and on teaching. (PA)