To show and to tell : the craft of literary nonfiction / Phillip Lopate.

It is the First Free Press trade paperback edition.

Includes bibliographical references.

The craft of personal narrative. The state of nonfiction today -- On the necessity of turning oneself into a character -- Reflection and retrospection : a pedagogic mystery story -- How do you end an essay? -- The uses of contrariety -- Imagination thin and thick -- Facts have implications : or, is nonfiction really fiction? -- On the ethics of writing about others -- Modesty and assertion -- On writers' journals -- The essay : exploration or argument? -- The made-up self : on the difficulty of turning oneself into a character -- Research and personal writing -- The lyric essay -- The personal essay in the age of Facebook -- Studies of practitioners. Lamb's Essays of Elia -- Hazlitt on hating -- How I became an Emersonian -- Teaching James Baldwin -- Edward Hoagland : the dean of American essayists -- The memoir and its critics : two takes.

A long-awaited new book on personal writing from Lopate--the celebrated essayist and the director of Columbia University's nonfiction program. He provides the nuts and bolts, offering a refreshing new master class on the craft of the personal narrative, including the personal essay and memoir.