ABSTRACT
The subject of this book is ‘life writing’, an umbrella term for biography and autobiography, which covers popular sub-genres — like travel writing, for example. The book investigates how biography and autobiography are generated and crafted and how creativity and imagination are as crucial to the life writing project as they are to other more likely genres such as fiction, poetry and drama. It explores how lives might be seen to be stories, and the best ways of retelling those stories. A series of examples illuminate how other writers have embraced the challenge of writing about a life. The book introduces a wide range of techniques to make best use of the memory and imagination, to help transform factual information into something worth reading, as well as suggesting methods to help undertake and incorporate appropriate research in the projects. It is appropriate for use on courses as part of workshop teaching, by writers’ groups, or by individual writers working alone.
