(Michael Martone, Dinty Moore, Elena Passarello, Sue William Silverman) Four memoirists discuss the possibilities, pitfalls, giddy pleasures, and pesky legal problems that can arise from using celebrities as context and metaphor in creative nonfiction. Though the idea goes back to The Divine Comedy, and Dante’s version of Virgil, the negotiation between truth and fantasy can be much trickier in nonfiction. The panelists will discuss incorporating figures such as Pat Boone, Richard Nixon, Dan Quayle, and (the artist formerly known as) Prince as “characters” in their nonfiction books and essays.

Published Date: September 16, 2015