autobiography
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One and The Same
Nosy readers often delight in sleuthing out the parallels between an author’s work and their life, as if an identifiable autobiographical source might change the meaning behind the words. So what happens when authors eliminate the boundary altogether? By calling…
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The Rumpus Interview with Debra Dean
Author Debra Dean discusses the thin line between fiction and autobiography and how she became a writer after a career onstage.
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A Memoirist’s Pact with the Reader
At Salon, Dani Shapiro writes an open response to a reader who felt that Shapiro’s memoir Slow Motion wasn’t fully honest because it didn’t include all the details of her life. In it, she explains what memoir is and isn’t, and what honesty…
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Twain’s Longest Dictation
In the New Yorker, Ben Tarnoff reviews Volume II of the Autobiography of Mark Twain. Notorious for his ability to talk a blue streak, Twain dictated the entire three-volume tome of over 5000 typewritten pages while lying in bed awaiting,…
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“Who the Hell Cares About Anne Sexton’s Grandmother?”
When we read a piece of fiction, we don’t assume—or at least we know we’re not supposed to assume—it’s a faithful recreation of an event in the author’s life. But what about when we read a poem? For Poetry, Kathleen Rooney writes…
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“Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story”
Vaguely reminiscent of our very own Letters in the Mail, Michael Kimball’s new book, Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a postcard) reinvents memoir in a way that would have Montaigne going postal. In his review, Joseph Riipi shares some of…