Writing lives: biography, autobiography, memoir, life-writing
This page draws together a range of resources on the broad, hybrid topic of writing lives. By life-writing we mean every possible way of telling a life-story, from biography and autobiography, through letters and memoir, to bio-fiction, blogs, and social media such as Tweets and Instagram stories. Writers and researchers are increasingly recognizing how much of writing is life-writing, including poetry and fiction. Through life-writing we can find out more about each other and we also understand ourselves better in relation to the past. Many of the resources here rise from the work of the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing (OCLW) at Wolfson College. At OCLW we explore and talk about the many different forms through which lives can be written, performed, recited and even sung. The resources here give a snapshot of our talks, readings and discussions.
The Oxford Centre for Life-Writing is a Centre dedicated to the study of life-writing
| # | Title | Description | Contributor |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | This is a place one can go mad in – Ivor Gurney, Asylum Poet | Ivor Gurney was a First World War poet and a composer of beautiful songs, and orchestral and… | Kate Kennedy |
| 2 | Is there any truth in biographical fictions? | In 2006 David Lodge expressed surprise at how popular biographical novels have become. Also… | Katherine Collins |
| 3 | Kirsty Gunn - Artefacts of Writing | At the end of the street where I lived, a street of gracious two-storey houses set in large… | Peter D McDonald |
| 4 | Reading between life and work: Reflections on J.M. Coetzee’s life-writing | The work of J.M. Coetzee – the novels, taken together with the memoirs and the critical essays –… | Elleke Boehmer |