Programme Two: Life writing
Sharpen your wits and pencils
- Write what you want to read
- Read what you want to write
- Write about what you know
- Inspiration file
- Plot finder
- Daily task
- Character
- Talking
- Editing
- Unwriting
- Rewriting
- The daily grind
- Deep structure
- Once more unto the postbox...
- Once more unto the postbox again
- Vanity publishing versus self publishing
- Rhyme for a reason
- RIO
- Working together
The second programme will be devoted to one of the biggest growth areas in literature over the last decade: Life Writing.
Ian and his guide, the novelist and biographer DJ Taylor, explore the territory opened by a host of new memoirs which incorporate techniques from fiction, autobiography and biography.
They hear from groundbreaking biographers such as Michael Holroyd and Richard Holmes who revolutionised the genre, paving the way for contemporary writers to cross the boundary between the personal and the private, between fact and fiction.
They also hear from the novelist Hanif Kureishi, author of Intimacy, about the pain the memoirist has to face when writing about family and loved ones. Is there ever material which is completely off limits, and how much should the wishes of the writer’s subjects be respected?
Ian and DJ Taylor also hear from younger writers such as Horatio Clare, author of Running for the Hills, a memoir about growing up on a remote Welsh farm. He explains the importance of unlocking memory with the use of `aides memoires’ such as diaries, photographs and objects.
Plus, top tips on how not to overburden a book of life writing with the weight of its historical research.
Content last updated: 14/12/2006
