Fifteen years ago when I started Creative Nonfiction, no one knew what I was talking about. What is creative nonfiction? Is it journalism? Poetry? Biography? Oral history? Memoir? Personal essay? Although more and more people “get it” now, even today, wherever I travel—and I am on the road quite a bit—people still ask those and other questions. They want me to define the term more clearly and categorically. So here goes: What is creative nonfiction? It is all of the above—and much more.

Generally, creative nonfiction is a way of writing that combines relevant and enlightening information (journalism), with ideas presented by the author (personal essay), inspired by the in-depth experiences of the author (memoir) or others (biography), and written with artful clarity (poetry). In creative nonfiction, everything you say must be true—you can’t make stuff up—but you can use the literary techniques of fiction writers—dialogue, description, plot—in order to make your story as compelling as a novel. One way or another, the creative nonfiction writer must always be telling a story—writing in scenes, invoking a narrative.

Despite the confusion surrounding its definition, creative nonfiction is the fastest-growing genre in the publishing industry, as well as in the academic world. More than 15 years ago, I started the first program to offer an advanced degree (an M.F.A.) in creative nonfiction at the University of Pittsburgh. There are now many more programs worldwide, including two additional ones here in Pittsburgh, at Carlow and Chatham universities. At least a half-dozen universities in the U.S. and Australia even offer a Ph.D. in creative nonfiction.

Key to the development and expansion of the genre, however, was the establishment of a journal—Creative Nonfiction—dedicated to publishing new writers with good stories to tell and important things to say and to offering a forum for discussion. Unlike mainstream magazines and newspapers, CNF is open to new ideas in narrative construction and pieces of various lengths, voices and orientations. No holds barred—except literary excellence. Because Creative Nonfiction is based in Pittsburgh, I like to think that our city is the birthplace and the epicenter of this style of writing. Its roots are here. So, as the city celebrates its 250th anniversary, we offer this special project, “Pittsburgh in Words.”

CNF has published some of the biggest names in the genre—John McPhee, Lauren Slater, Mark Bowden, Diane Ackerman—but it is also a central part of our mission to discover and develop new voices. Unlike most other magazines and journals, we coach and mentor emerging writers as they work, helping them develop their voice and awareness of literary structure. “Pittsburgh in Words” especially reflects this mission; it features new work by seven writers with a connection to the city, some of whose creative writing has never before been published.

To find these writers, we sent out a call for abstracts all across the United States, seeking new stories expressing not only what is true and meaningful about Pittsburgh, but also a purpose and a mission beyond the experiences related. We received more than 60 proposals for stories about subjects ranging from childhood memories of traveling to Pittsburgh for special occasions, to the history of the Heinz pickle (and the pickle pin), to biographies of long-gone landmarks.

The seven essays we eventually commissioned, considered together, capture a city at a pivotal stage of development; they convey not only Pittsburgh’s rich and complicated history, but also the excitement of the present as the city struggles to reinvent itself.

Several of these stories, perhaps unsurprisingly, begin with the writers’ grandparents: Kathleen Rooney Mara recalls a 1973 trip to Canada with her grandfather, Art Rooney Sr., for a tour of shrines and racetracks, and her essay meditates on memory’s power to soothe grief. Jeremy Smerd chronicles the rise and fall of M. Berger Co., a wholesale company founded by his grandfather in 1945, and examines his generation’s conflicted feelings about choosing (so far) not to go into the family business. “Pod City,” by Anjali Sachdeva, whose grandparents both worked for Heinz, examines the connections between her family’s feelings for its collection of company memorabilia (ketchup clocks, pickle ornaments) and the city’s ambivalent attitude toward change: “The emotion that holds Pittsburgh in its grip isn’t a simple longing for times gone by,” she concludes. “Instead, it’s a potent mixture of nostalgia and guilt, the sort of thing the Germans must surely have a word for.”

The other writers are transplants to Pittsburgh, but their relationships with the city and its people are no less complicated. Myron Cope’s death inspires Elena Passarello, who moved from Georgia to attend the University of Pittsburgh, to try to explain the appeal of Cope’s ragged scratch and to remember her own linguistic struggles to fit in here. Erin Tocknell recalls the last spring of the 20th century, when a course taught by Carnegie Mellon University professor Dave Demarast gave her a new appreciation of the ruins she rowed past during grueling early-morning practices on the Allegheny River with her college teammates. Mark Kramer juxtaposes a story of modern immigration, set at Tana Ethiopian Cuisine in East Liberty, against stories of earlier immigrants, such as John Arbuckle and Andrew Carnegie, and considers the role modern immigrants will play in shaping Pittsburgh’s future. Finally, in “In Pursuit of Puppets: A Pittsburgh Romance,” Missy Raterman tells how she shook off a growing malaise she blamed on Pittsburgh itself—the low cost of living and the city’s many attractions, paradoxically, left her feeling adrift and directionless—and came to find herself operating a life-size puppet onstage at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

“Pittsburgh in Words” also features some of the best true stories ever written about the city and its people, by some very well-known writers—Annie Dillard, John Edgar Wideman, Stewart O’Nan and many others. CNF almost always publishes new work, and it is rare that we have the opportunity to reach back in time and rediscover lost literary treasures. Assembling this collection, combining emerging writers with those buried by time, has been an honor and a delight.

As a whole, “Pittsburgh in Words” demonstrates that our city is more than the sum of the usual stories told about it. True, you will find steel mills here, and football and pierogies and rivers—but that’s just the beginning. And in this collection of compelling, electrifying, enlightening narrative nonfiction prose, you’ll also discover one of the city’s best-kept secrets: Pittsburgh is a place for writers, and it always has been.

Finally, on that note, I would like to express my gratitude to the city for providing Creative Nonfiction a home for the past 15 years. Unaffiliated with any university or institution, the journal has been generously supported by many local foundations and organizations, including The Juliet Lea Hillman Simonds Foundation, the Jewish Healthcare Foundation (with which we now have a book series), the McCune Foundation, The Pittsburgh Foundation and others. This special issue, “Pittsburgh in Words,” is supported in part by The Heinz Endowments, which have also supported other CNF projects.