A question of genre

I just read your very fine blog posts about the TNC interviews.

There's one problem with the terminology that many of you are using (all my students do this!):

--A NOVEL is a long prose work of fiction; TNC's books are not novels, even though they're long.

--TNC's books are works of PROSE NON-FICTION, because they are true, or at least aspire to be. He is also a journalist, which is why he does so much research.

--Other genres include poetry (epic, dramatic, lyric), drama, short fiction, and so forth. Be attentive to the forms writers use; often the forms help them make their arguments. Sometimes the forms even lead them to their arguments.

I'll go over this briefly in class, too.

aloha, sms