James Frey starts out his discredited memoir, “A Million Little Pieces,” with a broken nose, four missing teeth and a hole in his cheek. Since then, Frey ends his time in the spotlight bearing a broken movie deal, a shameful confession on “Oprah,” an equally shameful parody starring Steve Martin on “Saturday Night Live” and a black hole in place of his reputation.

James Frey’s firing-squad appearance on “Oprah” highlights the dubious distinction between truth and nonfiction. Enrolled in a Creative Writing Non-Fiction class this semester, I have had my friends tell me the “creative” part of the title bears some sort of contradiction with “nonfiction.”

I’ve tried to explain that it isn’t that simple; if you remove the “creative” part from the equation, you are left with something no more exciting nor personal than a tax audit.

As an editor once pointed out to me, there is an explicit difference between being a writer and being a reporter. Whenever I walk through the doors of the Northern Star, I am a reporter. There’s writing involved, but the facts are more important than any sense of style or identity.

When I sit down to write anything, be it script, novel or memoir, my connection with the audience is more important than any fact. Within the pages of a book, identity can be meticulously crafted, but memory is a bit harder to manipulate. Memory is not a play-rewind tape recorder, but instead, something we create and recreate every day of our lives.

I don’t really know how Frey envisioned staying in jail for years or brushing with the police numerous times when neither really happened. I don’t approve of Frey’s actions. I don’t know what Frey was thinking, or how much was a ruthless effort to make money or merely an ill-thought attempt to inspire. Ultimately, I know only that what I report and what I write are two very different things, and mixing the two can be like mixing liquor and painkillers, leading to disastrous revelations the next morning