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A penchant for journeys and a fascination with strangers
 
 

Writing Autofiction

Mondays: October 5 - 26
7 - 9:30 p.m. EST

Led by AUBE REY LESCURE
with guest authors Garth Greenwell, Harriet Clark, Weike Wang, & Santiago Jose Sanchez

$450 $400 (until July 28)

Please register with the email to which you’d like to receive class correspondence and readings.

What is autofiction—this fictional form that isn’t autobiography, but carries the uncanny verisimilitude of lived experience? That portrays our own memories with realism, while still being called fiction? That’s where autofiction lives: In the murky, rich territory where remembrance blurs, and fiction steps in not to lie, but to reveal something even truer.

This course is for writers who want to draw from their own lives without being bound to them. Autofiction has offered writers a form that reshapes memory into narrative, blurring the line between lived experience and imagined possibility.

Through a mix of generative exercises, craft discussions, close readings, and conversations with guest authors Garth Greenwell, Santiago Jose Sanchez, Weike Wang, and Harriet Clark, we’ll explore the art and ethics of fictionalizing real life. How can setting, point-of-view, and character transform fact into something fuller? What does it mean to invent yourself as a character on the page? And how can writing about what could have happened reveal a deeper emotional truth than what actually did?

Whether you write essays, nonfiction, short stories, or novels, the craft of autofiction can help distill truths that your writing is seeking and flesh out characters and plot lines. We’ll look at published texts and use in-class writing prompts to discover how to write about what you know, how to use the truth to go into imaginary places, and how to effectively construct a fictional world based on the worlds we know. 

In this course, you’ll learn:

  • How autofiction differs from memoir or creative nonfiction, and why it might be your best tool for writing from life.

  • How to transform lived experience into a rich, layered story that isn’t therapy or confession, but art.

  • What it means to invent yourself on the page, and the creative freedom that comes with letting truth and fiction dance.

  • The psychological and narrative risks of turning your life into literature, and how to write your way through them.

This is a craft intensive, not a workshop. While there’s no direct feedback on your writing, you’ll generate plenty of new material through customized prompts and weekly assignments. This course will take place live on Zoom, but is designed for asynchronous value if you are unable to participate in all sessions; recordings will be shared each week.

About the Instructors

 

Aube Rey Lescure

 
 

Garth Greenwell

Weike Wang

Santiago Jose Sanchez

Harriet Clark

 

A limited number of scholarships for this course are available. Please fill out this form by August 4, and we’ll get back to you within a week after the deadline. (Please hold off on registering until you have received a scholarship decision.)

Payment plans are available at checkout via ShopPay.

There is a 10% cancellation fee if you cancel your enrollment more than 1 week before the start of the course. No refund will be given if cancelling within less than a week of the course start date (or after the course has begun).

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Off Assignment’s Masters’ Series courses are unique four-session courses that delve deep into a specific writing topic by harnessing the expertise and craft tactics of a renowned writer in a particular niche, plus four celebrated authors. Participating writers gain a wealth of advanced techniques while benefiting from a cohesive community of disciplined writers.