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Carolita Johnson's avatar

My memoir turned to fiction (autofiction?) when I realized no one in my family is capable of telling the truth (for myriad reasons ranging from delusions, to denial, to mental illness, to simple misunderstandings, etc), and when I realized it would’ve been largely fiction even if I hadn’t made it so on purpose. Still working on it.

I’m glad you wrote about arnoux — I had been meaning to read that book, myself! Thanks for the endorsement!

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Susanne Reece's avatar

I took a workshop a couple of years ago just after I'd finished my MFA and was looking to turn my memoir in visual essays into a book proposal, which an editor who had seen it encouraged me to do. The person who was teaching this workshop discouraged every single woman in there--and we were all women--from pursuing memoir and memoir-based projects in favor of reported nonfiction with a sprinkle of personal narrative. Because the only memoirs that sell, he insisted, were celebrity memoirs. It made me both angry and sad, and I dropped the class because I thought if I shared my work with that instructor, I might very well never make another thing again.

I am in some ways very lucky in that I am able to freelance in a well-paying industry and have the flexibility to spend time on my own work and to do some teaching. I am constantly having conversations with myself about publishing. What I want from it. And where I might fit into that ecosystem. I like to make weird hybrid stuff. Need to make it. I try not to ruminate on it too much, and make the work I need to make, and get it out there in ways that I can. I suspect if I ever do have anything published it will be with an indie.

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