"Goodall has written a how-to book for academics interested in pursuing qualitative inquiry, a book that favors narrative writing over the more quantitative approach traditionally favored by the social sciences and some fields of the humanities. Much of Goodall's theoretical underpinning comes from Clifford Geertz's classic notion of "thick description," but as important, especially with regard to technique, is Lee Gutkind's writing on creative nonfiction and literary journalism. In his preface, Goodall cautions his readers about resistance in the academy to the narrative-based approach he describes; in the chapters that follow, he lays out his program on writing, structuring, submitting, and evaluating such studies and explains how to gain tenure or succeed outside the academy as a public scholar. Released in the "Writing Lives—Ethnographic Narratives" series, this book will be of particular value to beginning scholars who wish to write qualitative inquiry and to mid-career scholars frustrated by quantitative approaches. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduates students, researchers, and faculty." —CHOICE Magazine
"Call it personal narrative, creative nonfiction or qualitative inquiry, this genre has become increasingly dynamic and complex in the past few decades, developing and discarding new traditions at a rapid clip. Goodall corrals the best of those traditions and combined them with sound advice for those seeking to make a living from their scholarship. He considers the academic side of that living, and clearly delineates the sinkholes therein, while giving readers ways to break into public scholarship as well. He describes the power of the interesting story, the basics of the narrative epistemic, and methods of developing narrative structures that work within the framework of the academic. This works as a model as well as a guide to both process and career options, and includes a number of exercises suitable for the classroom as well as self-study." - Book News, Inc.
"Goodall starts his wonderful new book with a very simple, yet provocative question, “So you want to be a qualitative researcher who tells interesting stories?” and emphatically represents on each and every page just how he has delightfully mastered the art of which he writes! The art is variously called narrative nonfiction writing, narrative ethnography, autoethnography, or performative writing, among others; and the mastery is the fascinating weaving of stories and stories about stories designed to tell the tale of how to write well in this genre of qualitative research and why to remember that narratives are always told by someone to someone within a context or framework. To this end Dr. Goodall is his own best evidence that sharing stories is an effective means for us to learn a narrative way of knowing and communicating and one we should try to practice ourselves in our own working and living."- Ronald Chenail, Weekly Qualitative Report
"To have ready-made recipes for young scholars to test and turn into their own is an invaluable resource, although one might argue that no one can learn how to actually write like Goodall from following a recipe. However, that these recipes come from one of our most accomplished and seasoned ‘‘chefs’’ attests to how valuable this resource actually is. I found myself wishing that this book had been available when I was in graduate school. Who doesn’t want advice from the best? I predict this book will have a long print life and find its way into most graduate classes that utilize narrative as a research method. This practical and readable book is a must have for anyone interested in narrative research."
—Southern Communication Journal
"This volume is an invaluable resource that I can envision returning to several times over as I (hopefully!) traverse my path through the winding labyrinth of an early academic career. All politics and complexities aside, however, what this book did for me was to challenge and inspire me to elevate my writing standards, to read and write critically and deeply, and to endeavour to tell good stories that matter to both academia and the larger world."
- Meridith Griffin, Qualitative Research
