The visual essay is a hybrid narrative form that communicates meaning for the reader both visually and textually.
CRAFT: 4 powerful ways to use images and text in CNF by Nicole Breit
Category: Craft
Our Craft column archive, which features an array of guest contributors.
CRAFT: Bring It On Home- Techniques to Crafting Endings by Anita Gill
One aspect of writing I’ve stumbled over time and time again is producing effective endings to my short-form memoir pieces…
CRAFT: Visual Creative Nonfiction Forms – A Look at the Concrete Essay by Nicole Breit
The concrete essay is a sub-genre of the visual essay that uses typography to embed a shape or pattern into the piece itself….
CRAFT: Lessons From Academic Writing, Translated to Creative Writing by Amy Evrard
I’ve gained some important takeaways in my switch from academic writing to creative nonfiction writing…
CRAFT: Truth is Elusive — The Art of the Suppose by Beth Kephart, a special to Hippocampus Magazine
[Editor’s note: This essay was excerpted from Beth Kephart’s Aug. 25 opening address at HippoCamp 2018, Hippocampus Magazine’s annual conference for creative nonfiction writers.] We live in a truth-imperiled world. We live among fakers and relativists, liars and cheats, embellishers and subjectivists. We live afraid that the truth could be anything, or will remain forever…
CRAFT: Let’s Get Graphic: A Look at the Visual Essay by Nicole Breit
…consider these ten “visual” approaches to writing short-form memoir.
CRAFT: The Warning Signs of Throat Clearing by Sue Baldwin-Way
It’s hard to pare down good prose and the meat of the story, so my first swipe is at the easy cuts.
CRAFT: What My Painter Mother Taught Me About Writing by Katie Simon
Though our tools were different, my painter mother taught me some of my most important lessons about writing.
CRAFT: Striking the Balance: On Showing and Telling by Nicole Breit
Effective storytellers know there’s more to a day’s work than writing a through-line from Point A—inciting incident—to Point B—resolution.
CRAFT: The United Stigma of America by Tyler Grimm
We need to be compassionate to ourselves, and then we must be compassionate to those we write about.
