New Narrative is a movement and theory of experimental writing launched in San Francisco in the late 1970s by writers and novelists Robert Glück and Bruce Boone.
The New Narrative movement includes many gay, bisexual, queer and lesbian authors, and the works were greatly influenced by the AIDS epidemic in the '80s.
In addition to founders Bruce Boone and Robert Glück, New Narrative writers include Steve Abbott, Kathy Acker, Michael Amnasan, Roberto Bedoya, Dodie Bellamy, Bruce Benderson, Charles Bernstein, Nayland Blake, Lawrence Braithwaite, Rebecca Brown, Mary Burger, Kathe Burkhart, Marsha Campbell, Dennis Cooper, Sam D'Allesandro, Gabrielle Daniels, Leslie Dick, Cecelia Dougherty, Bob Flanagan, Judy Grahn, Brad Gooch, Carla Harryman, Richard Hawkins, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Gary Indiana, Edith A. Jenkins, Kevin Killian, Chris Kraus, R. Zamora Linmark, Eileen Myles, John Norton, F.S.
The New Narrative writers began to emerge from a workshop held at Small Press Traffic Bookstore by Robert Glück.
[7] To summarize the difference, Dodie Bellamy wrote, "I think of Bob Perelman's parody of lyric poetry, 'I look out the window and I am deep.'
Far from the university campus origins of most LANGUAGE Poetry, New Narrative writers often came into a theoretical and philosophical maturity via the free, open-to-the-public workshops that were something between a book club, a street protest, and a lecture hall.