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Click here to get to the forum to submit your works of creative non-fiction! The link for our creative non-fiction forum. Submit your work!! A short definition...
Creative non-fiction is a relatively recently recognized genre that involves writing from personal experience and/or reporting on other peoples’ experiences. The best creative non-fiction work usually involves conducting a considerable amount of research, most often “in the field,” involving oral history interviewing, participant observation, detective/sleuthing work, as well as jumping into new adventures. The range of possible topics is virtually unlimited, and this type of writing actually has a very long history. Creative non-fiction encompasses memoir writing, biography and autobiography, oral history, and inspired reportage on almost any subject. It involves writing about actual events in your own life and/or others’ lives, conveying your message through the use of literary techniques such as characterization, plot, setting, dialogue, narrative and personal reflection. |
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The Long Lost Big Brother by Jamie Carroll
The ice in his glass made a clinking sound. They tended to do this when the cubes slid off one another. Like miniature glaciers amongst a sea of whiskey and sweet vermouth, they cracked and crashed. I found the scene beautiful. But what looked to me like diamonds surrounded by liquid amber was a normal sight for a bartender like him.
It was a Thursday night, a few hours after my brother got off work and a few days after my eighteenth birthday. My older brother and I sat in the kitchen of the townhouse he and his wife were renting. Placed right at the border of what was considered downtown Boyne City, the area outside my brother’s house was often found to be softly lit by the dim, orange glow of streetlights. The towering black posts bathed everything around in their gentle light. The sidewalks, the street, the porch—little evaded the watchful eye of the ever-present streetlights.
We sat atop the counter. He was perched in the corner of the room, and I was leaning against the cupboards above the sink. We spoke about everything there is and absolutely nothing at all. Our minds wandered as we shared intimate thoughts and personal observations of the strangest, most obscure things.
“I think Jar Jar was a funny enough addition to the new Star Wars movie. I don’t know why people are complaining about him,” I commented.
“I think it’s just a different kind of humor than they expected, is all,” he replied.
From science fiction, to film, to religion and then romance, the topics gradually shifted. Time seemed to fly as he sipped his Manhattan and I my Dr Pepper. He told me that he needed a smoke, so from the dark kitchen, lit only by the light above the oven we moved out to the front porch. Sitting upon the steps leading down to the sidewalk and street, we continued our ever-changing discussion of life in general.
“I don’t know what to do. I think I really like her, but don’t feel we’d really get along in a romantic way,” I explained to him.
“Don’t worry too much about how you feel for her,” he advised. “Let it play out as it will.”
He puffed that Camel Turkish Gold as the misty sign of burning tobacco drifted out and dissipated above the street before us.
“I love the sounds of night, especially up here: the cars, the people, the trees and trash and the breeze that blows them, everything,” I told him.
“It’s nice, but sometimes I wish we still lived out in the country like you do,” he admitted.
People would slowly stroll by the enclosed porch, seeming to forget that it was eleven, or midnight, or two in the morning. Cars would drive past on their way to who-knows-where, leaving little more than the smell of exhaust as evidence of their passing.
When his cigarette was gone, my brother stepped inside, and I followed suit like a pup at his heels. We returned to our counters, now cool beneath us as we talked, and talked, into the night.
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