Writing Workshops

Autobiographical Writing: A Toolkit with Eraldo Souza dos Santos

$150

3 Sessions

Out of stock

Friday—Sunday March 24 to March 26, 2023

Online via Zoom

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Meeting Details:
Friday 3/24, 6–8pm ET
Saturday 3/25 & Sunday 3/26, 12–2pm ET

“All writing is autobiography,” J. M. Coetzee argued once in what was neither the first nor the last time a writer has insisted on the relationship between literature and writing the self. Through selected readings and writing prompts, we’ll discuss in this craft workshop Coetzee’s provocation by exploring how our lived experience informs our writing practice and how autobiography takes shape across literary genres.

We’ll be reading and discussing writings from authors such as Alexander Chee, Angela Davis, Annie Ernaux, Édouard Louis, and Ocean Vuong. Participants will have the opportunity to workshop their pieces and receive feedback in the second and third meetings.

Course Outline

Session I: Autobiography, Autofiction, Memoir, and Other Genres
Session II: Writing the Self: Three Techniques
Session III: Pitching Autobiographical Pieces

Capacity: 20

Led by

Eraldo Souza dos Santos

Eraldo Souza dos Santos

A 2022 LARB Publishing Fellow, Eraldo Souza dos Santos is a Brazilian writer currently based between Paris and São Paulo. His first novel, to be published in 2024, is an autobiography of his illiterate mother and a meditation on the lived experience of Blackness and enslavement in modern Brazil. At the age of seven, his mother was sold into slavery by her white foster sister. It was 1968—eighty years after the abolition of slavery in Brazil and four years into the anti-communist coup d’état, during the month in which the military overruled the Constitution by decree. By weaving in extensive archival research and interviews, the novel narrates their journey to Minas Gerais—where she was born—and Bahia—the Blackest state in Brazil, where she was enslaved on a farm for three years—to investigate why the family that enslaved her has never been brought to justice. It also narrates his grandmother’s journey to search for her missing daughter. In March 2023, he’ll offer a masterclass based on his novel at the prestigious UEA Creative Writing Course.

About this series

Writing Workshops

We strive to make our classes the most inviting and rewarding available, offering an intimate environment to study with award-winning, world-class writers. Each class is specially designed by the instructor, so whether you’re a fledgling writer or an MFA graduate polishing your novel, you’ll find a perfect fit here.

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