what is life writing?

Life Writing is any writing that is based in some way on lived experience – personal or researched – and has a narrator who is not an imagined construct. It includes biography, autobiography, memoir, diaries, letters and travel writing.

Life writing often focuses on identity, memory and emotions. But it’s not just about one person. It can encompass stories about objects or buildings, whole families or communities. It can be part of a life or a whole life. Life writing often explores traumatic events but it can also explore significant achievements and everything in between.

Some of the best books from the past century are life writing:

• The Diary of A Young Girl –  Anne Frank 

• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou

• Angela’s Ashes – Frank McCourt

• Eat, Pray, Love – Elizabeth Gilbert

• The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion

• Educated – Tara Westover.

• Girl, Interrupted – Susanna Kaysen

We run a two-year Life Writing Programme for writers wanting to explore this area. Of course much of fiction is inspired by true events and it can sometimes be difficult to choose whether to study life writing or creative writing. Why not sign up for a taster session for both life writing and creative writing to decide which is right for you.

Our tutors for the Life Writing Programme are Katy Massey and Holly Dawson.

Katy’s memoir Are We Home Yet? spans the years from 1935 to 2010 from Canada, to Leeds and Jamaica, and explores shame, immigration and class alongside Katy’s relationship with her mother.

Holly’s memoir All of Us Atoms focuses on Holly’s experience of being faced with the prospect of losing her memory. She revisits the moments that changed her - from childhood to motherhood, loss and ill-health.