ABOUT THE BOOK
Publication date: November 19th, 2015
Paperback: 280 pages
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN-13: 9780226306506

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I’ll tell you mine

University of Chicago Press, 2015

The University of Iowa is a leading light in the writing world. In addition to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop for poets and fiction writers, it houses the prestigious Nonfiction Writing Program (NWP), which was the first full-time masters-granting program in this genre in the United States. Over the past three decades the NWP has produced some of the most influential nonfiction writers in the country.

I’ll Tell You Mine is an extraordinary anthology, a book rooted in Iowa’s successful program that goes beyond mere celebration to present some of the best nonfiction writing of the past thirty years. Eighteen pieces produced by Iowa graduates exemplify the development of both the program and the field of nonfiction writing. Each is accompanied by commentary from the author on a challenging issue presented by the story and the writing process, including drafting, workshopping, revising, and listening to (or sometimes ignoring) advice. The essays are put into broader context by a prologue from Robert Atwan, founding editor of the Best American Essays series, who details the rise of nonfiction as a literary genre since the New Journalism of the 1960s.

Reviews for I’ll Tell You Mine

“Not only is this an anthology of some of the best essays that have been written in the United States over the last three decades but it is also a well-planned writing textbook. The editors are astute, talented, and experienced and the essays are wonderful. This is an important book.”

— Ned Stuckey-French, author of The American Essay in the American Century

"I'll Tell You Mine presents some of the country’s most exciting young essayists. Though their roots are in Iowa, their reach as innovators extends far into the realm of American letters today. This collection of work from their MFA days, and after, reveals the robust health of both the essay—in all its capacious forms—and the program itself."

— Lia Purpura, author of Rough Likeness