Led by 2022 LARB Publishing Fellow Eraldo Souza dos Santos, a Brazilian writer currently based between Paris and São Paulo. Eraldo has taught creative writing at the Center for Fiction as well as history, philosophy, and political science at the Sorbonne and at the University of Chicago's Vienna Human Rights program. Eraldo will join Cornell as a Klarman Fellow (Summer 2024) and UC Irvine as an Assistant Professor within the Poetic Justice Cluster (Summer 2025). 

Take your autobiographical project to the next level in a series of unusual experiments in writing the self.

“All writing is autobiography,” J. M. Coetzee argued once in what was neither the first nor the last time a writer has insisted on the relationship between literature and writing the self.

Through selected readings and writing prompts, we’ll discuss in this craft workshop Coetzee’s provocation by exploring how our lived experience informs our writing practice and how autobiography takes shape across literary genres.

We’ll be reading and discussing writings from authors such as Alexander Chee, Angela Davis, Annie Ernaux, Jamaica Kincaid, Édouard Louis, and Ocean Vuong. Participants will have the opportunity to workshop their pieces and receive feedback in the second meeting.

COURSE OUTLINE:

Session I: Autobiography, Autofiction, Memoir, and Other Genres

Session II: Writing the Self: Three Techniques

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• You will have the opportunity to produce at least two short pieces based on writing exercises proposed throughout the workshop.
• You will receive written feedback for the pieces you will produce during the workshop and for one of the pieces you may want to produce independently.
• You will have the opportunity to workshop your pieces with the other workshop participants as well as with me in a one-on-one consulting session.
  

TESTIMONIALS:

This was a brilliant workshop! I really enjoyed the mixed approach of tasks, reading & discussion, and I came away with some amazing new thoughts & insights. Thank you so much! -UEA Creative Writing Course, MA Prose Fiction

I was in Eraldo’s Lounge Writers session on writing autobiographies. Eraldo selected excellent readings and discussed them closely, inviting our questions and comments. I really appreciated the balance between thorough examination of content and concepts and hands-on exercises on autobiography. Eraldo shared his extensive knowledge of world literature, literary criticism, and history in ways that contextualized the readings and provided a useful framework for the participants to contextualize the autobiographies they may want to write. I left this relatively short session with a deeper and broader understanding of the concepts covered. Eraldo is a generous, engaging, and enthusiastic instructor. I look forward to learning more from him in future sessions. -Lounge Writers

Eraldo is brilliant, current, and analytical. His course content was endless -- in that beyond what was covered in class, Eraldo exposed us to new worlds in literature that we go forward to pursue independently, a sort of limitless virtual classroom. Eraldo's presentation/material is marvelously thought-provocative. He never talked down to the class while he consistently elevated our knowledge base. I consider it an honour to have studied w/ him and hope to do so again in the future. -Former Student

The workshop was agile and engaging, where Eraldo Souza dos Santos shared his knowledge and encouraged everybody to participate. The writers and books he recommended to us (so hard to find alone in a bookstore) were precisely what I was looking for to pursue my project. Thanks! -Center for Fiction

"Content and instructor were harmonious. Examples and discussion opened up a new world to me as an author. Your teaching style is very grounded, open, inviting, warm, personal, literate, intellectual." -Former Student

"It must be said... that you are a wonderful, clear in purpose and delivery, teacher." -Former Student

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE: