Blog : Articles

"Proper Names Are Poetry in the Raw": Character Formation in Traumatic Nonfiction

By Dan Lehman   |  August 28, 2013
...I want to rekindle our desire for the complex truth of a written life. To do so, I wish to refocus our attention to what I believe matters about nonfiction, particularly nonfiction about trauma. I would never argue that facts don’t matter in nonfiction ... Yet I hope to prove that what really counts is the tangible human presence outside the text that competes with the nonfiction character inside the text.

Luke Dittrich and "The Prophet"

By Matt Tullis   |  August 25, 2013
In this podcast, Matt Tullis interviews Luke Dittrich about the story "The Prophet," published by Esquire.

The Art of Mulling: Steven Harvey and Kate Hopper

August 22, 2013
Over the next couple of months, we'll feature a presentation from the 2013 River Teeth Nonfiction Conference.

Stephen Rodrick and "The Misfits"

By Matt Tullis   |  July 23, 2013
In this podcast, Matt Tullis interviews Stephen Rodrick about the cover story "The Misfits," also called "This is what happens when you cast Lindsay Lohan in your movie" on The New York Times Magazine online.

Editor's Notes, Volume 15, Number 1

By Sarah Wells   |  June 28, 2013
In the keynote address of the second annual River Teeth Nonfiction Conference, Scott Russell Sanders encouraged the audience of over 80 to write about where they are because, “Your place probably needs your art.”

Brian Mockenhaupt and "The Living and the Dead"

By Matt Tullis   |  May 21, 2013
During the River Teeth Nonfiction Conference this weekend, Matt Tullis, Journalism and Digital Media professor at Ashland University, interviewed Brian Mockenhaupt about his Byliner.com article, "The Living and the Dead."

Why We're Here: 2nd Annual River Teeth Conference

By   |  May 17, 2013
The River Teeth Conference this weekend brings many writers together in one friendly little town to have a conversation about story. Their words are sure to ignite my spirit and enliven my desire to get the story I need to tell down on paper in its truest and most artistic form.

Jesse Lichtenstein and "Do we really want to live without the post office?"

By Matt Tullis   |  April 15, 2013
Podcast interview with Jesse Lichtenstein. Jesse Lichtenstein wrote the story, "Do we really want to live without the post office" for the February issue of Esquire. In the story, Lichtenstein follows mail through the postal process in an effort to understand how it can get from one end of the country to the other for a scant 43 cents.

Editor's Notes, Volume 14 Number 2

By Joe Mackall   |  February 15, 2013
Are there too many memoirs out there? Are too many being written? Is enough, enough? After all, for the last twenty-five years we’ve read memoirs on every conceivable subject. Some great, some good, some fair, some poor.

Kelley Benham French Discusses "Never let go"

By Matt Tullis   |  February 15, 2013
In this podcast interview, Matt Tullis talks to Kelley Benham French about her story, "Never let go," which is about the birth of her daughter. Juniper French was born at 23 weeks, six days and weighed one pound, four ounces.

What Is Creative Nonfiction?

By Eric LeMay   |  February 1, 2013
Enough already. We’re so weary of that question. Those questions: What do you mean by “creative”? Isn’t all writing creative? And isn’t “non-” weird, too? Why not Non-Poetry? Or Non-Refrigerator-Repair-Manuals, since “non-” is anything that a thing isn’t?

An Interview with Pamela Coloff about "The Innocent Man"

By Matt Tullis   |  January 31, 2013
In November and December of 2012, Texas Monthly Magazine published the story "The Innocent Man." The two-part series, reported and written by Pamela Colloff, tells the story of Michael Morton, a young husband and father who was wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife in 1987.

"The Most Amazing Bowling Story Ever" Interview with Michael J. Mooney

By Matt Tullis   |  January 10, 2013
In this podcast, Matt Tullis, Journalism Professor at Ashland University, interviews Michael J. Mooney about his piece in D Magazine, "The Most Amazing Bowling Story Ever," which has garnered attention as one of the best pieces of nonfiction in 2012.

Do Not Read Out Loud

By Laurie Uttich   |  January 3, 2013
Laurie Uttich teamed up with Sean Ironman to create this video of "Do Not Read Out Loud," from River Teeth 14.1.

Matt Tullis Interviews Justin Heckert About "The Girl Who Feels No Pain"

By Matt Tullis   |  December 13, 2012
Journalist Justin Heckert discusses his story "The Hazards of Growing Up Painlessly" with Ashland University journalism professor Matt Tullis in this podcast. Heckert's story chronicles the life of 13-year-old Ashlyn Blocker, who suffers from congenital insensitivity to pain.

Reviewed: Looking for Esperanza

By Sonya Huber   |  October 1, 2012
If James Agee’s life experience had overlapped more with the lives of his sharecropper subjects in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, he might have been able to produce a book like Adriana Páramo’s new work, Looking for Esperanza.

Editor's Notes, Volume 14 Number 1

By Dan Lehman   |  August 28, 2012
It’s been an exciting stretch at River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative--highlighted by our inaugural national conference. For three days in May, writers gathered in Ohio from across the United States for readings, workshops, manuscript evaluations, and late-night skull sessions about the best of nonfiction writing and why facts matter.

What I Wish I Didn't Know

By Jason B. Dutton   |  April 25, 2012
I don’t fault other disabled writers for writing about their conditions, and people like Nancy Mairs and Floyd Skloot have ably demonstrated that such writing can educate and engage others. So why is it that there is always a voice in my head that smirks at my essays? “Well sure,” he says. “Of course you were going to write about that.”

Annual Conference: 8,000 Writers Expected

By Rebecca McClanahan   |  February 26, 2012
With the 2012 AWP Conference happening in just a few days, here is Rebecca McClanahan's "Annual Conference: 8,000 Writers Expected" from River Teeth 13.2.

One Year After "A Double Life"

By Lisa Catherine Harper   |  February 1, 2012
It has been one year since the debut of the 2010 River Teeth book prize winner, A Double Life: Discovering Motherhood by Lisa Catherine Harper. We asked Harper to share a little about her experiences winning the prize.

Editor's Notes, Volume 13 Number 2

By Joe Mackall   |  January 23, 2012
In the third or fourth year of River Teeth’s existence, a former undergraduate English professor of mine submitted an essay to us. As I tore open the envelope, I fantasized about how many nasty ways I could reject this guy.

Focusing on Flash Nonfiction: An Interview with Dinty Moore

By Jenny Patton   |  January 9, 2012
Dinty W. Moore – editor of Brevity, an online literary journal of short nonfiction – recently won the Stanley W. Lindberg Award for Excellence in Literary Editing, an award honoring the memory of the venerable Georgia Review editor by recognizing the work over time of an editor who has a record of encouraging excellence in others while producing it in his or her own work. During his summer stint as a literary nonfiction instructor at Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, Dinty sat down at the Kenyon Inn in Gambier, Ohio to share his thoughts about the short essay.

Editor's Notes - Volume 13, Number 1

By Joe Mackall   |  October 1, 2011
I don’t remember much about being 12 or 13 years old, but I do recall feeling a little restless, maybe even a tad reckless. Just how those feelings manifested themselves over forty years ago, I’ll leave buried, deep in the hazy cave of a dim memory. Now that we at River Teeth are in year thirteen, we’re feeling a bit restless ourselves, maybe even a tad reckless.

River Teeth: An Introduction

By David James Duncan   |  September 25, 2011
There is in every log a series of cross-grained, pitch-hardened masses where branches once joined the tree's trunk. "Knots," they're called in a piece of lumber. But in the bed of a river, where the rest of the tree has been stripped and washed away, these knots take on a very different appearance, and so deserve a different name.

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