In an Age of Great Nonfiction Writing, Too Much Nonfiction Writing?

via Colorado State University

Over the next two weeks RBM will be blogging for Colorado State University's Center for Literary Publishing, where he serves as a Colorado Review editorial assistant. His first post considers a debate about memoirs that's been brewing this month. An excerpt:

to read the New York Times Book Review as of late is to get the impression that the age of nonfiction, like that of Rome or America, has overstepped its bounds. The literary world, according to Times editor Neil Genzlinger, has been inundated by “a sea of people you’ve never heard of, writing uninterestingly about the unexceptional, apparently not realizing how commonplace their little wrinkle is or how many other people have already written about it.” Genzlinger’s guide for “would-be memoirists,” which conveys the kind of hollow feeling I get from reading sex advice columns, comes in four parts

To read this post and an upcoming interview with one of the Review's nonfiction contributors, visit the CLP Editor's Blog.

Update: Creative Nonfiction has flagged RBM's "Too Much Nonfiction Writing?" in its March newsletter along with a similar post worth reading, Brevity's "Listening to One Another: A Defense of the Memoir Genre."