Live Seminar Via Zoom Saturday, March 22nd & Sunday, March 23rd, 2025

Class will meet 10:00AM PST – 1:00PM PST on Both Days

Any questions about this class? Use the Chat Button (lower left) to talk with us.

Taught by New Yorker contributor Frances Badalamenti, author of I Don’t Blame You, Salad Days, and Many Seasons, this class will take a deep dive into the unique genre of autofiction or autobiographical fiction. 

During this weekend autofiction intensive, we will take a deep dive into the unique art of autofiction. Autofiction combines the disciplines of autobiography and fiction. It can be written like memoir or like fiction, but it generally comes down to style: autofiction is often highly introspective and mainly focuses on interior life.

For this course, we will focus mainly on women writers of autofiction, such as: Lucia Berlin, Zinzi Clemmons, Annie Erneaux, Tove Ditlevsen, Marguerite Duras, Carmen Maria Machado, Sigrid Nunez, and Yuko Tsushima.

This class is for all levels of writers and readers.

Assignments:

• Excerpts: Frances will provide (5) excerpts from works of autofiction and (3) craft essays to be read ahead of time; we will spend time discussing them as a group.
• Craft talk: we will discuss various elements of creative writing and how those disciplines are often used in autofiction
• Writing: we will practice writing in the vein of autofiction.
• Sharing of work: there will be the opportunity to share your work (always optional), but the structure will not be in a traditional workshop format (no feedback on your work, just the option to share)

You will gain:

• a concrete understanding of the unique art of autofiction
• inspiring community dialogue and critique of contemporary autofiction authors
• how elements of craft are used in autofiction
• coming away with an understanding of how to write autofiction

Craft talk (and how these narrative elements relate to autofiction):

• Story structure and plot development (book map/story grid)
• Scene vs. exposition (The Yellow Test)
• Dialogue
• Tense: 1^st person, 2^nd person, 3^rd person, omniscient 
• Character development/POV
• Voice, tone, mood, style
• Pacing
• Throughlines and themes

TAKE THIS CLASS IF:

• You’re curious to learn more about autofiction as a genre
• You’re looking for inspiration and/or to possibly begin writing in this genre
• You’d like to engage in a lively discussion about contemporary autofiction writers such as Sheila Heti, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Chris Kraus, Ben Lerner, Brandon Taylor, Edouard Louis and more

YOU'LL TAKE HOME:

• A broad understanding of what autofiction really means
• Inspiration and knowledge that you can apply to your writing and/or reading practices
• An expanded list of autofiction titles for further reading and study

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

Live Seminar Via Zoom Saturday, March 22nd & Sunday, March 23rd, 2025. Class will meet 10:00AM – 1:00PM Pacific Standard Time on Both Days

• Frances Badalamenti | Live via Zoom

• Live Seminar Via Zoom Saturday, March 22nd & Sunday, March 23rd, 2025

• 10:00AM PST – 1:00PM PST
  

• Seminar is fully ONLINE and meets via Zoom