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.

Learn more about Eraldo in our Meet the Teaching Artist series.

Fiction and nonfiction, sure; but what does autofiction mean? This three-week workshop offers a hands-on introduction to the ethics and poetics of combining fact and reality, memory and imagination, fiction and nonfiction.

What is fact and what is fiction in fiction and non-fiction? For many, all fiction is autobiographical; but to what extent can nonfiction, and especially autobiographical writing and memoir, be fictional? What literary and technical, but also moral and political challenges, does the blurring of the boundaries between fiction and reality raise?

This workshop is an introduction to the genre known as autofiction, which combines autobiography and fictional elements. We’ll read and discuss together the works of writers such as Serge Doubrovsky, Annie Ernaux, Charu Nivedita, Sheila Heti, and Teju Cole.

Through writing prompts and exercises, we’ll also explore how autofiction can take literary shape. Participants will also have the opportunity to workshop their pieces and receive feedback in the second and third meetings.

Students will read work from Marcel Proust (In Search of Lost Time), Serge Doubrovsky (Fils), Annie Ernaux (A Man's Place / A Woman's Story), Charu Nivedita (Zero Degree), Sheila Heti (Motherhood / How Should a Person Be), Édouard Louis (History of Violence), Teju Cole (Every Day is for the Thief)...and more!

COURSE OUTLINE:

Week 1: Is This True? Genres of Fiction and Genres of Nonfiction

Week 2: Autofiction: Four Techniques / Writing with Others

Week 3: Is This a Lie? Legal, Moral, and Political Challenges

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• We will read, discuss, and find inspiration together in key autofiction novels.
• You will have the opportunity to produce at least three short pieces based on exercises in autofiction proposed throughout the workshop.
• You will have the opportunity to workshop your pieces with the other workshop participants as well as with Eraldo 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: