Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003
Robert
Root
Books
Creative Nonfiction:
| Recovering Ruth: A
Biographer's Tale Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003 |
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This memoir of the travels and entanglements surrounding the search for evidence of the life of Ruth Douglass, the author of the journal published as "Time By Moments Steals Away": The 1848 Journal of Ruth Douglass (see below under books on Isle Royale), was published in May 2003 by the University of Nebraska Press and awarded the Library of Michigan's 2004 Michigan Notable Book Award. For more information use this link: http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/bookinfo/4347.html
On Writing:
| Working at Writing: Columnists
and Critics Composing. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991. |
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This study of the composing processes of working writers prints interviews with political columnists Tom Wicker and Richard Reeves, essayists Jim Fitzgerald and Kathleen Stocking, and critics Walter Kerr, David Denby, and Neal Gabler. It also reprints the articles they discuss in the interviews. The book is available in the Park Library at PN4784 .C65 R66 1991.
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Wordsmithery: A Guide
to Working at Writing. |
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This is a book of writing advice for nonfiction writers, drawing on the experience of both experienced and emerging writers. Further information on the book is available at this link: Wordsmithery
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Those Who Do, Can:
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A collection of articles about teaching nonfiction, poetry, fiction, and other forms of writing, along with samples of writing by teachers and teaching ideas. This book is available in Park Library at PE1404 .T49 1996. Further information is available at this link: Those Who Do, Can.
On Nonfiction:| The Fourth Genre: Contemporary
Writers of/on Creative Nonfiction. 3nd Ed Co-edited with Michael Steinberg. New York: Longman, 2005. |
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 1st Ed. NY: Allyn & Bacon, 1998. |
A collection of contemporary essays, memoirs, personal cultural criticism, and other forms of creative nonfiction, along with articles by leading and emergent authors on their composing processes and the nature of the forms in which they work. Further information on this book is available at this link: The Fourth Genre.
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E. B. White: The Emergence
of an Essayist.
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A study of E. B. White's career as a writer of nonfiction, tracing its course from his early days as a humorist and paragrapher of Notes & Comment for The New Yorker through his development as a columnist for Harper's Magazine and his return to The New Yorker as an editorial commentator to the final series of "Letters from the East". The book concentrates on the manuscript evidence of White's composing and the contexts in which he wrote his enduring and memorable nonfiction. This book is in the Park Library at PS3545.H5187 Z86 1999. Further information on the book is available at this link: E. B. White.
On Isle Royale:
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"Time by Moments Steals
Away": The 1848 Journal of Ruth Douglass.
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An edition of the journal kept in 1848 by a woman who ended the year wintering over at a mining site on Isle Royale. The original manuscript of the journal is in the Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University at this call number: CT275.D8676 R66 1998. The book is also available at Barnes & Noble or at Wayne State University Press.
| The Island Within Us: Artists-in-Residence on Isle Royale 1991-1998 Co-edited and Compiled with Jill Burkland Houghton: Isle Royale Natural History Association, 2000. |
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A collection of art and literature by artists-in-residence at Isle Royale National Park between 1991 and 1998 showcasing works by painters, photographers, poets, essayists, musicians, and a range of other visual artists. Includes biographies and artist statements by each artist as well as the introductory essay, "The Island Within Us: Artists on Isle Royale" and the artist essay, "Canoeing the Sky." The book won the 2001 Excellence in Media Award from the National Park Service. This book is in the Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University at NX650.N38 I85 2000x. For further information about the book and the Isle Royale Natural History Association use this link: www.irnha.org.
| Diaries of an Isle
Royale Fisherman Co-edited with Jill Burkland Houghton: Isle Royale Natural History Association, 2002. |
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This book collects the diaries and humorous newsletters of Chicago photographer and Isle Royale fisherman Elling A. Seglem. The text has been edited from original manuscripts, in part by CMU graduate students in ENG 638 Seminar in Textual Analysis and Editing, and includes numerous photographs. Further information on the book and the Isle Royale Natural History Association is available at www.irnha.org.
On Literary Figures:
Thomas Southerne.
New York: Twayne, 1981.
Critical Essays on E.
B. White.
(Editor) New York: G. K. Hall, 1994.
On Popular Culture:
The Rhetorics of Popular
Culture:
Advertising, Advocacy, Entertainment.
Westport: Greenwood Press, 1987.
Representative Articles:
On Writing:
For a sample article on writing click the following title: "Writing Trade Texts: A Career Writer Composing". This article appeared in Issues in Writing 6:2 (Spring/Summer 1994): 149-163, and appears here by permission of the author.
For an article on writing creative nonfiction click the following title: "Captioning and Capturing the Past". This is a paper presented at the 1999 Associated Writing Programs convention and posted on this website for interested readers.
Read the full length 2000 CCCC paper on creative nonfiction and writing across the curriculum at Eye of the Beholder.
Read the full length 2001 CCCC paper on the segmented essay at "This is What the Spaces Say".
On English Education:
For a sample article on teaching literature and media click the following title: "Imagining Visual Literacy: The Poetics and Rhetoric of the Image". This article appeared in The CEA Critic 58:3 (Spring/Summer 1996): 60-71, and appears here by permission of the author.
Read the CCCC2002 talk on creative nonfiction in the field of English, "Variations on a Theme of Putting Nonfiction in its Place".
See also:
"The Virgule Variations: Learning/Language/Literature", in English Journal 80:6 (October 1991): 18-27.
"Once More to the Essay: Prose Models, Textbooks, and Teaching", in Journal of Teaching Writing 14:1/2 (1995): 87-110.
Essays:
For an essay or example of creative nonfiction click the following title: "Anasazi". This article appeared in North Dakota Quarterly 59:4 (Fall 1991): 145-154, and appears here by permission of the author.Read my essay "To Think of Time" at River Review/Revue Riviere.
For an essay connected to the ArtServe Michigan 1998 Creative Artist Grant in Nonfiction click the following title: "Canoeing the Sky".
Read my essay, "Place," in the online journal Brevity. The essay also appears in the Fall 2002 issue of Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction.
Additional links to academic writing by Bob Root may be found on the personal home page.
