"Essays. Travel writing. Reviews. Literary journalism. Memoir. Oral history. All of these and more now fall under the rubric "creative nonfiction," a term that seems to have created itself. We will briefly talk about early essays in the guise of letters (Seneca), the father of the secular essay (Montaigne), current eminent practitioners, and notions about future directions."

http://sps.northwestern.edu/program-areas/summer/institutes/writers-conference/workshops.php