Settling the Borderland

Settling the Borderland deals with the intimate connection between journalism and literature, both fields in which work by women has been underrepresented. This book has a twin focus: the work of journalists who became some of the greatest novelists, poets, and short-story writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in America, several of whom are men, and contemporary journalists who best exemplify the effective use of literary techniques in news coverage. Although five women are emphasized here (Katherine Anne Porter, Eudora Welty, Joan Didion, Sara Davidson, and Susan Orlean), three men whose work was profoundly influenced by journalism also are included. Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, and John Steinbeck are well known as writers of poetry, short stories, and novels, but they, too, are among the "other voices" rarely included in studies of literary journalism. In Settling the Borderland, Jan Whitt presents a thorough analysis of the increasingly indistinct lines between truth and fiction and between fact and creative narrative in contemporary media.

Engagingly written, Settling the Borderland sparkles with insights that will inspire others to help settle this long overlooked territory., An insightful addition to the growing scholarship about the relationship between journalism and literature. Whitt demonstrates in detail the direct links between these authors' early journalism experiences and their literary writing. The reader will be struck by how much has been imparted in relatively few pages. Whitt's scholarship is sound and will doubtless inspire continued exploration of this less known realm., Because of its review of basic concepts of literary journalism, the book could serve as a useful and concise starting point for new students of the field, but its enduring value lies in the possibilities it reveals for future research., A Dozen Best: A Review of Literary Journalism Scholarshippppp, A Dozen Best: A Review of Literary Journalism Scholarship

Jan Whitt is associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Whitt's first book with UPA, Reflections in a Critical Eye: Essays on Carson McCullers, is winner of the 2008 Eric Hoffer Book Award culture category, second place winner in the ForeWord Magazine 2007 Book Award women's issues category and a finalist in the Colorado Book Awards anthology and collections category.