Creative nonfiction is a relatively young genre. People have been writing true stories in a fun way for a while, as noted in an article on Creative Nonfiction that traces the genre's origins through Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, and the New Journalism movement, all the way back to classical writers like Herodotus and Plutarch. But as far as the genre as it's understood and defined today, that really started in 1969, when editor Norman Podhoretz was said to have coined the term. That's not very long in literary movement terms, so it's understandable that a lot of people still seem to be a bit fuzzy on exactly what creative nonfiction is. 

Partly this is because there are several types of writing included under the broader umbrella of creative nonfiction—and, making things more complicated, not everybody agrees exactly which should belong to the club. Most definitions exclude criticism and scholarly writings but there are gray areas when these are paired with a narrative, and there's an even blurrier line separating creative nonfiction from journalism.