Lyric Essay is a literary hybrid that combines elements of poetry, essay, and memoir. The lyric essay is a relatively new form of creative nonfiction. John D’Agata and Deborah Tall published a definition of the lyric essay in the Seneca Review in 1997: "The lyric essay takes from the prose poem in its density and shapeliness, its distillation of ideas and musicality of language." A forerunner of the lyrical essay is Truman Capote, author of In Cold Blood (1966), a book which introduced the nonfiction American novel.