From the category archives:

Life Writing

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.

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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.

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‘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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