This summer, we're taking a look through the rear-view mirror at childhood—and, in the process, examining how it shapes us into our adult selves. The writers featured in Creative Nonfiction #60 recount formative childhood experiences that leave indelible memories: stomping through a snowstorm to Sunday mass; discovering a dead body in the woods; touring beautiful homes they’ll never live in; or trying, desperately, to dance their way to junior high popularity. Here we have kid-dom in all its messy glory: the good, the bad, and the biting truth.

Plus, fifteen contemporary nonfiction authors discuss the books that made them writers; how to write about your kids without messing them up (too much); the link between addiction memoirs and coming-of-age stories; Tiny Truths; and more.

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• "What's the Story?" by Lee Gutkind
  From the Editor
• "Before We're Writers, We're Readers" by Randon Billings Noble
  15 nonfiction authors on the true (or mostly true) stories they read as kids
• "I Survived the Blizzard of '79" by Beth Ann Fennelly
  A deadly snowstorm shuts down the city, and the author's family heads to church
• "Writing Motherhood" by Marcelle Soviero
  Parenting blogs and magazines have become ubiquitous, but is the literature of motherhood still undervalued?
• "True Empathy or Understanding is Rare"
  A conversation with our "Childhood" essay contest winner Judith Barrington
• "The Red Caboose" by Brian Broome
  The white kids liked to watch him dance, but only from a distance