The Science of Story: The Brain Behind Creative Nonfiction
Ebook
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Overview
Bringing together a diverse range of writers, The Science of Story is the first book to ask the question: what can contemporary brain science teach us about the art and craft of creative nonfiction writing? Drawing on the latest developments in cognitive neuroscience the book sheds new light on some of the most important elements of the writer’s craft, from perspective and truth to emotion and metaphor.
The Science of Story explores such questions as:
· Why do humans tell stories?
· How do we remember and misremember our lives - and what does this mean for storytelling?
· What is the value of writing about trauma?
· How do stories make us laugh, or cry, make us angry or triumphant?
Contributors: Nancer Ballard, Mike Branch, Frank Bures, J.T. Bushnell, Katharine Coles, Christopher Cokinos, Alison Hawthorne Deming, David Lazar, Lawrence Lenhart, Alan Lightman, Dave Madden, Jessica Hendry Nelson, Richard Powers, Sean Prentiss, Julie Wittes Schlack, Valerie Sweeney Prince, Ira Sukrungruang, Nicole Walker, Wendy S. Walters, Marco Wilkinson, Amy Wright.
Brings together a diverse group of prolific and award-winning writers to ask how contemporary brain science can shed new light on the art and craft of creative nonfiction writing.
A cutting edge exploration of the craft of creative nonfiction writing drawing on new developments in neuroscience
Chapters written by award winning writers and teachers of creative nonfiction
Casts new light on key elements of writing craft, including: perspective, emotion, truth and metaphor
Table of Contents
01 Introduction, Sean Prentiss and Nicole Walker
02 Bengal Tiger Moments: Perception of Time in the Brain and on the Page, Sean Prentiss, Vermont College of Fine Arts, USA
03 Sipping from the Transmitter: Theorizing the ’Potential Essay’, Lawrence Lenhart –
04 The Brain is a Master Class, Dave Madden, University of San Francisco, USA
05 Brain on Fire, Nicole Walker, Northern Arizona University, USA
06 The Brain Split in Half, Ira Surungruang, University of South Florida, USA
07 When the Body Reads: Writing Sensory Perception for Reader Embodiment, Nancer Ballard, Brandeis University, USA
08 Lens: A Lyric Meditation, Katherine Coles, University of Utah, USA
09 The Heart and the Eye: How Description Can Access Emotion, JT Bushnell, Oregon State University, USA
10 The Memory Agent, David Lazar, Columbia College Chicago, USA
11 On Metaphor, V. Efua Prince, Wayne State University, USA
12 The Glittering World of Synapses, Lyncia Bega, Dine´ writer and artist
13 A Sense of Oneness with Sun and Stone, Leila Phillips, College of the Holy Cross, USA
14 A Gardener’s Education (Animal Body), Marco Wilkinson, Oberlin College and Lorain County Community College, USA
15 The Secret Lives of Stories: Rewriting Our Personal Narratives, Frank Bures, author of The Geography of Madness
16 Conversations in Intensive Care, Amy Wright, author
17 Mindfulness and Memoir, Julie Wittes Shlack, author
This book offers intriguing takes on the question of how our unknowable brains reckon with experience and lead us to the artistic practice of creative nonfiction. Cognitive science, neuroaesthetics, mirror neurons, memory and metaphor all come out to play with these inquiring minds. This is not an instruction manual, but rather a series of brilliant provocations to expand the field of our writing lives.
The Science of Story makes a great case for the essay as premier scientific instrument. Each contribution in this anthology illuminates a new intersection between writing and science. How does time or space work in memory or on the page? How do description and emotion affect us? How do memory or metaphor work to produce the magic they do? How do the essays we love affect us emotionally? And more importantly, how can writers use or repurpose these tools to make more interesting and beautiful things? This book will be revelatory for writers of nonfiction and their many readers.
- Title: The Science of Story: The Brain Behind Creative Nonfiction
- Authors: Sean Prentiss, Nicole Walker
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
- Print Publication Date: 2020
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 256
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781350083905, 9781350084247, 1350084247, 1350083909
- Resource ID: LLS:9781350083905
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T10:08:33Z
Sean Prentiss is Associate Professor of English at Norwich University, USA. He is author of Finding Abbey: The Search for Edward Abbey and His Hidden Desert Grave (2015), which won the National Outdoor Book Award for Biography/History. He is also co-editor of The Far Edges of the Fourth Genre (2014) and co-author (with Joe Wilkins) of Environmental and Nature Writing: A Writer's Guide and Anthology (Bloomsbury, 2017).
Nicole Walker is the author of the collections The After-Normal: Brief, Alphabetical Essays on a Changing Planet from Rose Metal Press and Sustainability: A Love Story from Mad Creek Books. Her previous books include Where the Tiny Things Are, Egg, Micrograms, Quench Your Thirst with Salt, and This Noisy Egg. She edited for Bloomsbury the essay collections Science of Story with Sean Prentiss and with Margot Singer, Bending Genre: Essays on Creative Nonfiction. She's nonfiction editor at Diagram and teaches at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.