The lifespan of a fact

How negotiable is a fact in nonfiction? In 2003, an essay by John D'Agata was rejected by the magazine that commissioned it due to factual inaccuracies. That essay--which eventually became the foundation of D'Agata's critically acclaimed About a Mountain--was accepted by another magazine, but not be...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: D'Agata, John, 1974-
Other Authors: Fingal, Jim
Format: Books Print Book
Language:English
Published: New York, N.Y. : W.W. Norton, c2012.
Edition:1st ed.
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Summary:How negotiable is a fact in nonfiction? In 2003, an essay by John D'Agata was rejected by the magazine that commissioned it due to factual inaccuracies. That essay--which eventually became the foundation of D'Agata's critically acclaimed About a Mountain--was accepted by another magazine, but not before they handed it to their own fact-checker, Jim Fingal. What resulted from that assignment was seven years of arguments, negotiations, and revisions as D'Agata and Fingal struggled to navigate the boundaries of literary nonfiction. What emerges is a brilliant and eye-opening meditation on the relationship between "truth" and "accuracy" and a penetrating conversation about whether it is appropriate for a writer to substitute one for the other"--P. [4] of cover.
Physical Description:123 p. ; 24 cm.
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN:9780393340730 (pbk.) :
0393340732 (pbk.)
Author Notes:John D'Agata is the author of About a Mountain , Halls of Fame , and editor of The Next American Essay and The Lost Origins of the Essay . He teaches creative writing at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, where he lives.

Jim Fingal is now a software engineer and writer in Cambridge, Massachusetts.