The Fourth Genre: Contemporary Writers of/on Creative Nonfiction, 2/e is a comprehensive and indispensable introduction and guide to the way creative nonfiction is written today.

The Fourth Genre offers the most thorough and teachable introduction available to this exciting cutting-edge genre. Its approach is both literary and writerly, focusing on the form and acknowledging the literary impulse in nonfiction as a fourth genre equivalent in scope, expression, and artfulness to the three genres of poetry, fiction, and drama. This anthology is the first to draw on the common ground of the practicing writer and the practical scholar, and of creative writing practice and composition theory, in an attempt to bridge the gaps between the teaching of composition, creative writing, and literature in English departments.

Part I compiles an anthology of contemporary essays, memoirs, literary journalism, and personal cultural criticism of accomplished writers, reflecting the breadth and range of contemporary creative nonfiction. Part II presents articles discussing the forms and issues surrounding the fourth genre, including pieces by writers whose work appears in Part I. Part III pairs essays and memoirs with articles by their authors explaining their composing processes when they wrote the essay.