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List of contents
Foreword, Caroline McMillen
Editor's Preface, Jo Parnell
Introduction, Hugh Craig
PART 1: FOUND LIVES: REFRAMING THE LOST, THE INANIMATE AND THE HIDDEN
1. Obituaries: Behind the Public Tribute, Amanda Norman
2. Writing the Lives of Objects and Things, Donna L. Brien
3. Burra's Giant Onion and the Battle of the Somme, David Walker
4. Revealing What It Means To Be Human: The Nature of Literary Docu-Memoir, Jo Parnell
5. The Struggle in Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle, Michael Sala
PART 2: MOVING LIVES: RELOCATING IN TIME AND SPACE
6. Mapping Lives: (re)making place, Sonya Huber
7. Spatial Experiments: Autobiographical Cartography, Vanessa Berry
8. Brief Encounters: Curating GIFs, Memes and Social Media for Short Story Life-Writing, Emma Newport
9. Biographical Lyric: Writing Lives in Poems, Page Richards
10. Writing Lines, Writing Lives: The Art of Poetic Biography, Jessica L. Wilkinson
PART 3: YOUNG LIVES: NEW GROWTH
11. Giving Voice: A Different Approach to Life Writing, Willa McDonald
12. Autobiographical Writing for Children: Anh Do's The Little Helperand Malala Yousafzai’s Malala’s Magic Pencil, Kate Douglas.
About the author
Dr Jo Parnell, is Conjoint Fellow in the School of Humanities and Social Science at Newcastle University, Australia.Amanda Norman is Senior Lecturer and Programme Lead of the BA (Hons) Childhood Studies at the University of Winchester, UK. She is the author of From Conception to Two: Development, Policy and Practice (2019) and has published works about infant care pedagogies in academic peer reviewed and professional practice articles.
Summary
With recent advances in digital technology, a number of exciting and innovative approaches to writing lives have emerged, from graphic memoirs to blogs and other visual-verbal-virtual texts. This edited collection is a timely study of new approaches to writing lives, including literary docu-memoir, autobiographical cartography, social media life writing and autobiographical writing for children. Combining literary theory with insightful critical approaches, each essay offers a serious study of innovative forms of life writing, with a view to reflecting on best practice and offering the reader practical guidance on methods and techniques.
Offering a range of practical exercises and an insight into cutting-edge literary methodologies, this is an inspiring and thought-provoking companion for students of literature and creative writing studying courses on life writing, memoir or creative non-fiction.
