Editing Frederick Buechner (section)

=== Nonfiction and memoirs ===
Buechner's works of non-fiction, which cover several sub-genres including sermons, daily reflections, and [[memoirs]], altogether outnumber his works of fiction. His first such work, ''[[The Magnificent Defeat]]'', is a collection of sermons, signifying his growth into his career as a minister at Exeter. Throughout his career, he published several more volumes of sermons, most recently ''[[Secrets in the Dark: a life in sermons]]'', which includes a "more or less [chronological] culling" of his sermons, "together with the most recent and hitherto unpublished ones."<ref>Buechner, Frederick (2007). "Introduction". ''Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons''. HarperCollins. {{ISBN|9780061146619}}</ref>

To date, Buechner's corpus of memoir includes four volumes: ''[[The Sacred Journey]]'' (1982), ''[[Now and Then (memoir)|Now and Then]]'' (1983), ''[[Telling Secrets (memoir)|Telling Secrets]]'' (1991), and ''[[The Eyes of the Heart: a memoir of the lost and found|The Eyes of the Heart]]'' (1999). Of all his books, ''The Sacred Journey'' and ''Telling Secrets'' consistently rank among his bestselling. Of his interest in memoir, Buechner wrote in the introduction to ''The Sacred Journey'':

{{blockquote|About ten years ago I gave a set of lectures at [[Harvard]] in which I made the observation that all [[theology]], like all fiction, is at its heart autobiography, and that what a theologian is doing essentially is examining as honestly as he can the rough-and-tumble of his own experience with all its ups and downs, its mysteries and loose ends, and expressing in logical, abstract terms the truths about human life and about [[God]] that he believes he has found implicit there. More as a novelist than as a theologian, more concretely than abstractly, I determined to try to describe my own life as evocatively and candidly as I could in the hope that such glimmers of theological truth as I believed I had glimpsed in it would shine through my description more or less on their own. It seemed to me then, and seems to me still, that if [[God]] speaks to us at all in this world, if [[God]] speaks anywhere, it is into our personal lives that he speaks.<ref>Buechner, Frederick (1982). "Introduction". ''The Sacred Journey: A Memoir of Early Days''. HarperOne. {{ISBN|9780060611835}}</ref>}}

Buechner's most recent publications include ''Buechner 101: Essays and Sermons by Frederick Buechner'' (2014), ''The Remarkable Ordinary: How to Stop, Look, and Listen to Life'' (2017), and ''A Crazy, Holy Grace: The Healing Power of Pain and Memory'' (2017).