From the category archives:

Life Writing

Belief

February 26, 2009

Belief is a really, really important part of how we perceive the world: more important than factual truth.

Origins and destinations

February 5, 2009

I believe that at the heart of storytelling lie two questions: where do we come from, and where are we going?

20 auto/biographies you should read

January 21, 2009

Here’s a list of 20 pieces of life writing (autobiography, biography, anything in between) I loved reading. In most cases that also means that, in reading them, I learned something new about writing lives.

The myth of the myth

January 14, 2009

Myths are fashionable, especially in biography and other kinds of truth writing. The thesis is: the first story conceals the truth through myth; the second story reveals it through facts.

The autobiography of my reflection

January 7, 2009

I live my life constantly, but my reflection only pops into being every now and then. I could write about any event in my life, but my reflection is only conscious of those moments when I’m looking at myself in a mirror, or can be glimpsed in someone else’s car window.

Two attempts at autobiographical fiction

November 26, 2008

For me, the fictionalising of an autobiographical narrative is one way of acknowledging that you will never reach the truth – that the closer you look at your own memory, the further you get from the reality of a moment. Here are two of my attempts at fictional autobiography.

Changing the story

October 30, 2008

A while ago, I had the idea of creating a new kind of business card. Rather than telling people my job title, company email address and other bland details, this alternative business card might reveal something a bit deeper about myself.

Real people

October 22, 2008

I’ve written a fair bit about facts, and when I studied biography at university some time ago I showed considerable disdain for them. But sometimes I’m reminded that biography presents problems that are not merely theoretical.

Fixing and tricksing

October 15, 2008

The idea that photographs “fix” the past is a common literary trope. According to the paradigm, memory is transient, but photographs are permanent, and can drag up a past we wouldn’t otherwise have any recollection of.

‘No Escape’

October 8, 2008

Do you remember being six or seven years old? When I was at school, and it was time to do art, every single person in the class sat down and produced a painting. When it was time for writing, everyone wrote a story or a poem. The annual school play had everyone in it, and [...]

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