New Release Books by Lee Gutkind

As founding editor of Creative Nonfiction and architect of the genre, Lee Gutkind played a crucial role in establishing literary, narrative nonfiction in the marketplace and in the academy. A longstanding advocate of New Journalism, he has reported on a wide range of issues-robots and artificial intelligence, mental illness, organ transplants, veterinarians and animals, baseball, motorcycle enthusiasts-and explored them all with his unique voice and approach. In My Last Eight Thousand Days, Gutkind turns his notepad and tape recorder inward, using his skills as an immersion journalist to perform a deep dive on himself. Here, he offers a memoir of his life as a journalist, editor, husband, father, and Pittsburgh native, not only recounting his many triumphs, but also exposing his missteps and challenges. The overarching concern that frames these brave, often confessional stories, is his obsession and fascination with aging: how aging provoked anxieties and unearthed long-rooted tensions, and how he came to accept, even enjoy, his mental and physical decline. Gutkind documents the realities of aging with the characteristically blunt, melancholic wit and authenticity that drive the quiet force of all his work.

Thoughtful, poignant, and hilarious personal essays collected by the editors of Creative Nonfiction explore the meanings of Italian-American identity. In the twenty-one nonfiction narratives collected in Our Roots Are Deep with Passion, established and emerging writers with family ties to Italy reflect on the ways that their lives have been accented with uniquely Italian-American flavors. Several of the essays breathe new life into the time-honored theme of family—Louise DeSalvo honors her grandfather, nick-named “the drunk” because he spent his life of hard work drinking wine instead of water, and James Vescovi portrays the close of the stormy relationship between his father and grandmother. Other stories tackle the mystical side of Italian-American life, like Laura Valeri’s account of a summer vacation séance in Sardinia that goes eerily awry. And elsewhere, Stephanie Susnjara charts the history of garlic in society and her kitchen, and Gina Barreca offers an unabashed confession of congenital jealousy. Lee Gutkind, founding editor of Creative Nonfiction, the nation’s premier nonfiction prose literary journal, and Joanna Clapps Herman have brought together artful essays by novelists, scholars, critics, and memoirists from across the country. The pieces are as varied as their authors, but all explore the unique intersections of language, tradition, cuisine, and culture that characterize the diverse experience of Americans of Italian heritage.

Lee Gutkind’s memoir of motorcycling, and an ode to the solitude, independence, and exhilaration of the open road Few things loom as large in our imaginations as the idea of a cross-country trip, exposed to the elements and open to whatever challenges lie around the bend. In the early 1970s, looking to experience and explain the allure of the road trip, Lee Gutkind embarked on a long motorcycle road trip, documenting the misadventures and magic that he found along the way. He writes of the men whose journeys continue to resonate, from Lawrence of Arabia to the Hell’s Angels. He explores the appeal of the motorcycle—his vehicle of choice—and its historically loaded place in the American imagination. And he revels in the country’s diverse and striking landscapes, as seen while moving through woods, plains, mountains, and deserts. An inspiring and evocative tribute to the power of the journey, Bike Fever is a classic rendering of the unique freedom wrought by a motorcycle and a long highway.

A fascinating and revealing look inside the lives of umpires, from the godfather of creative nonfiction In 1974, Lee Gutkind walked into Shea Stadium, then home of the New York Mets, with an unusual proposal. He wanted to chronicle one of the least celebrated cadres in professional baseball: the umpires. Gutkind spent one exhilarating season traveling with the officiating crew he found that day—Doug Harvey, Nick Colosi, Harry Wendelstedt, and Art Williams, the first African American umpire in National League history. Gutkind’s narrative reveals much about the peculiarities of the men charged with the “thankless and impossible task of invoking order”—their work ethic, fallibility, and perhaps most strikingly, their pride. As resonant today as when it was first published, The Best Seat in Baseball, But You Have to Stand! is an engrossing story of the men who work on one of the nation’s biggest stages, their victories and their failures, and their inner worlds that are rarely—if ever—explored.

One in four American adults will endure the trials of a mental health condition this year, and more than half will experience one in their lifetime. Yet the stigma of mental illness remains, leading many to face their difficulties in shame and silence. In this collection, ten writers confront the stigma of mental illness head-on, bravely telling stories of devastating depressions, persistent traumas, overwhelming compulsions, and more.

“A welcome and poignant account of the intense human and political dynamics of a major children’s hospital that will have a substantial impact on the way you view children and their care.” —The New England Journal of Medicine Lee Gutkind is a master at stepping into the worlds of medicine and revealing the unique desires, characteristics, and stories of the people therein. For One Children’s Place, he spent two years at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, observing not just the patients but also their nurses, surgeons, therapists, administrators, and families. What he found was an institution that excelled at responding to the needs of the children who stayed there, from the professionals who dealt with the unique problems of hospital furniture and design, to the nurses and social workers who became unwaveringly close allies to their young charges, to the doctors who undertook risky new procedures to save lives. Brimming with hope and animated by fascinating anecdotes, One Children’s Place is a powerful portrait of heroism and heartbreak, by one of America’s foremost nonfiction storytellers.

In the tradition of James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small, An Unspoken Art is Lee Gutkind’s captivating look at the lives of veterinarians, from the zoos to the farm Lee Gutkind, the godfather of creative nonfiction, explores with warmth and sincerity the worlds of modern-day veterinarians—from practitioners operating on Manhattan’s Upper East Side to those working knee deep in mud in the English countryside. Gutkind profiles the men and women who have devoted their lives to the care of animals, almost all treating their patients with more humanity and compassion than physicians in human hospitals do. He writes of the people who do not bat an eye at sharing a bed with their dogs, and of those who spare no expense when it comes to the well-being of their pets. An Unspoken Art is an insightful look at the individuals who dedicate themselves to the care of creatures, and of the enduring bond between people and animals.

A harrowing exploration of one of the country’s most troubling hidden shames: the widespread neglect of disabled children by the institutions that have sworn to protect them Four-fifths of American children with serious mental health problems receive no professional treatment whatsoever. They are the product of an overextended and often neglectful system that, as Lee Gutkind writes, has reached the level of insanity. Following the stories of three children—Daniel, Meggan, and Terri—Stuck in Time chronicles the tragedies and injustices wrought not only by the deficiencies of the mental healthcare system, but by government policymakers who have failed to address the problem. Through these children and their families, Gutkind explores mental illness as both a scientific and social issue, from the harsh economic realities of supporting a disabled child to the immense difficulty of finding a suitable counselor. Written with passion and piercing detail, Stuck in Time is a poignant examination of three families fighting against impossible circumstances, and of a system too inflexible to accommodate the helpless victims it is meant to support.

Winner of the American Heart Association’s Howard W. Blakeslee Award for outstanding achievement in scientific journalism: Lee Gutkind’s riveting and groundbreaking account of the science, ethics, and life-changing capacity of organ transplantation Over the past six decades, the rapid advances in transplant surgery rank among the most impressive and significant in modern human history. But the procedures, which have an astonishing power to improve or even save lives, are often fraught with an unrivaled level of complexity. Seeking to better understand the world of transplant surgery, Lee Gutkind embedded himself for four years in the University of Pittsburgh’s Presbyterian-University and Children’s Hospitals, one of the largest transplant centers in the world. He got to know the doctors, researchers, patients, and families involved, while also exploring the history of transplantation and the often insoluble ethical quandaries it poses. Mesmerizing and unforgettable, Many Sleepless Nights depicts with uncanny insight the tremendous effort, suffering, and fortitude of the individuals whose lives have been changed forever by organ transplantation.

From "the godfather behind creative nonfiction" (Vanity Fair) comes this indispensable how-to for nonfiction writers of all levels and genres, "reminiscent of Stephen King's fiction handbook On Writing" (Kirkus). Whether you're writing a rags-to-riches tell-all memoir or literary journalism, telling true stories well is hard work. In You Can't Make This Stuff Up, Lee Gutkind, the go-to expert for all things creative nonfiction, offers his unvarnished wisdom to help you craft the best writing possible. Frank, to-the-point, and always entertaining, Gutkind describes and illustrates every aspect of the genre. Invaluable tools and exercises illuminate key steps, from defining a concept and establishing a writing process to the final product. Offering new ways of understanding the genre, this practical guidebook will help you thoroughly expand and stylize your work.

Is personalized medicine—what some scientists call genetic medicine—a pipe dream or a panacea? Francis Collins, current director of the National Institutes of Health and director of the Human Genome Project, considers this new era “the greatest revolution since Leonardo,” while Nobel Laureate Leland Hartwell compares personalized medicine to a train that has not yet left the station—“a very slow train with a very long way to go . . . before we arrive at our destination.” There is no denying that new technology, which has triggered an explosion of scientific information, is ushering in a revolution in medicine—for specialists, general practitioners and the public. Anyone can spit in a cup and, for a small fee, learn about his or her individual genetic make-up. But how useful is this information, really, to us or to our doctors? What’s more, how much do we truly want to know—and have others know—about our possible destiny? There is more than we can imagine at stake. In An Immense New Power to Heal, authors Lee Gutkind and Pagan Kennedy delve into the personal side of personalized medicine and offer the physician’s perspective and the patient’s experience through intimate narratives and case studies. They also offer an intriguing background of the personalized medicine movement including the fascinating personalities of the key scientists involved as well as a glimpse into the in-fighting that accompanies any race for a scientific breakthrough. The result is a highly engaging, lively, and provocative discussion about this revolution in health care, and most importantly, what it really means for patients now and in the future.

A remarkable, intense portrait of the robotic subculture and the challenging quest for robot autonomy. The high bay at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University is alive and hyper night and day with the likes of Hyperion, which traversed the Antarctic, and Zoe, the world’s first robot scientist, now back home. Robot Segways learn to play soccer, while other robots go on treasure hunts or are destined for hospitals and museums. Dozens of cavorting mechanical creatures, along with tangles of wire, tools, and computer innards are scattered haphazardly. All of these zipping and zooming gizmos are controlled by disheveled young men sitting on the floor, folding chairs, or tool cases, or huddled over laptops squinting into displays with manic intensity. Award-winning author Lee Gutkind immersed himself in this frenzied subculture, following these young roboticists and their bold conceptual machines from Pittsburgh to NASA and to the most barren and arid desert on earth. He makes intelligible their discoveries and stumbling points in this lively behind-the-scenes work.

A father and son travel across North America in a pick-up truck--talking, laughing, fighting, and bonding.

Dubbed?some would say drubbed?the ?godfather behind creative nonfiction? by Vanity Fair, Lee Gutkind takes the opportunity of these essays, and the rich material of his own life, to define, defend, and further expand the genre he has done so much to shape. The result is an explosive and hilarious memoir of Gutkind?s colorful life as a motorcyclist, a medical insider, a sailor, a college professor, an over-aged insecure father, and a literary whipping boy. ø In Forever Fat Gutkind battles his weight, his ex-wives, his father, his rabbi, his psychiatrist, and his critics in a lifelong cross-country, cross-cultural search for stability and identity. And from Gutkind?s battles, the reader emerges a winner, treated to a sometimes poignant, sometimes harrowing, sometimes uproarious, and always engrossing story of the simultaneous awakening of a man and his mission, and of the constant struggle, in literature and in life, to sort out memory and imagination. Here, enacted in technicolor terms, is the universal, symbolic truth that no matter how far you travel, over how many years, you will never completely shed the weighty baggage of adolescence. Yet, as Gutkind proves again and again, he has learned to describe his burden with an ever-lightening brilliance.

A complete guide to the art and craft of creative nonfiction--from one of its pioneer practitioners The challenge of creative nonfiction is to write the truth in a style that is as accurate and informative as reportage, yet as personal, provocative, and dramatic as fiction. In this one-of-a-kind guide, award-winning author, essayist, teacher, and editor Lee Gutkind gives you concise, pointed advice on every aspect of writing and selling your work, including: * Guidelines for choosing provocative--and salable--topics * Smart research techniques--including advice on conducting penetrating interviews and using electronic research tools * Tips for focusing and structuring a piece for maximum effectiveness * Advice on working successfully with editors and literary agents

Since James Herriot first began his practice almost a century ago, new technologies and the changing concerns of animal owners have dramatically altered the veterinarian's world. Through a kaleidoscope of contrasting portraits, Lee Gutkind introduces an equally impassioned lot of doctors and their sometimes eccentric patients. Animal lovers will love this journey from tony, expensive Manhattan practices to mucky farms, from cutting-edge animal hospitals to zoos and aquatic parks.

Describes individuals living in western, rural Pennsylvania, including coopers, blacksmiths, hunters, and innkeepers, and discusses the history and lore of the region