I have been working on a book manuscript for over 10 years about a writing pedagogy of care. Since graduate school (PHd in English 1998) readers of my more academic writing have asked me to do more than describe people and situations and narrate tales, but to analyze and draw out the points I want to make. I have always resisted this criticism as infusing my writing with a didacticism I do not want. I have been defensive thinking either they just don't understand ethnographic writing or they are resisting the incurrence of creative nonfiction into the academy.
Recently dropped by a publisher I had hopes for because of an upcoming change of editors, I began drafting a new book proposal with their reviewers criticism in mind--the work needs more analytic foci. This publisher asks that you state what the purpose of each chapter is. I began rewriting the old annotated table of contents with this question in mind. I also began thinking of something I hear a lot in the 12-step recovery movement: we keep principles over personalities. Suddenly I am doing it--framing the chapter summaries with statements of purpose, assured that this approach does not preclude the story telling that follows in the actual chapters. I know now how to be an analytic raconteur and I like it.
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