Writing Your Self: Transforming Personal Material

Writing Your Self is a comprehensive resource for anyone who wants to explore personal material in their writing. It examines how many writers use personal subject matter in memoirs, poems, journals and novels. Part One focuses on universal experiences including childhood, identity, adult relationships and loss as well as more specific issues such as displacement and disability, physical and mental illness and abuse. Throughout the book writers, including the authors, give frank, firsthand accounts of their own experiences and how they have tackled writing about them. Part Two begins with a series of techniques for approaching personal material which include practical exercises and examples. It also considers the differences between raw and finished writing and the validity of each and offers ideas for developing work. With its wide range of writers and the exciting possibilities it offers, Writing Your Self is a definitive book for exploring personal literature and life writing.