WEDNESDAYS, Jan. 14th - Feb. 18th | Is it true or is it fiction – and does it matter? Often the lines between memoir and fiction can be blurry. Most great literature has at least some elements of truth in it, from books that are largely autobiographical, like Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, and Chris Kraus’s Aliens and Anorexia, to fictional worlds like Denis Johnson’s that could only be created through personal experience. The term autofiction has been used to describe works by Ocean Vuong, Marguerite Duras, Sheila Heti, and Rachel Cusk. Since Annie Ernaux won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2022, the genre has been getting even more buzz.
In this class, we will talk about the debate over autofiction versus memoir. We will explore memories, experiences, and characters from our own lives and turn them into fictional stories, blending the richness of our emotional and felt experiences with elements from our imagination to create compelling writing. We will even experiment with putting fantastical elements into our work, creating speculative autofiction like that of Ariel Gore and Laura van den Berg.
We will have writing prompts, in-class exercises, and reading assignments of autofiction and semi-autobiographical fiction. This class is primarily a writing workshop, and your work will be discussed twice in the class. You will be expected to read and comment on classmates’ work.
Asynchronous learning materials for this class will be available online (via the Wet Ink platform). Scheduled class sessions will take place via Zoom. Registered students, please contact the instructor directly for Zoom details. Instructor contact details can be found in the order confirmation email.