Tim O'Brien, author of The Things They Carried

Author Tim O'Brien speaks at the 2009 National Book Festival. He wrote The Things They Carried. My daughter is reading that now, and finds it incredibly gripping and moving. It's the quality of the writing as well as the stories that seems to move her. I was under the impression that is was memoir, but it turns out to be a work of fiction, although based on his own experiences in Viet Nam.
Here's what the Wikipedia entry says about his take on "truth" in writing:

In the short story "Good Form", the narrator makes a distinction between "story truth" and "happening truth." O'Brien feels that the idea of creating a story that is technically false yet truthfully portrays war, as opposed to just stating the facts and creating no emotion in the reader, is the correct way to clear his conscience and tell the story of thousands of soldiers. Critics often cite this distinction when commenting on O'Brien's artistic aims in The Things They Carried and, in general, all of his fiction about Vietnam, claiming that O'Brien feels that the realities of the Vietnam War are best explored in fictional form rather than the presentation of precise facts. O'Brien's fluid and elliptical negotiation of truth in this context finds echoes in works labeled as 'non-fiction novels.'

In this video, he reads about being a father at an older age, in the form of a letter to his young son. He says some amazing things about being a writer and being a parent.