With the Spring 2010 issue of “Creative Nonfiction,” this literary journal became a magazine. Lee Gutkind started the journal in 1993 when there were few creative nonfiction journals around. And now, as a magazine, it will be expanding to include more than essays. There will be articles on craft, literary developments, profiles, and more.

So the usually small (5.5″ x 8.25″) journal arrived in my mailbox this week as a splashy large (8.25″ x 10.75″) magazine, its cover resembling a tag cloud on WordPress!

I was most interested in reading what Gutkind had to say about the state of creative nonfiction today. A sidebar paraphrases him: “I believe there are many reasons for creative nonfiction’s popularity, beginning with the practical fact that people-readers-respond to stories, to narrative.”

I especially liked that he says on page 5 that “narratives help make information accessible and memorable.” For sure, we all like to read a good story.

You may want to check out this new magazine format. It promises to be broadly informative for those of us who like to write narratives. Simply click on the name of the magazine above. Note that this current issue has a thought-provoking series on immortality, including an excerpt from Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.