Into Being : The Radical Craft of Memoir and Its Power to Transform
The acclaimed author of Sins of My Father shares the secrets of writing a new, transformative kind of memoir. Into being is an essential guide to writing memoir in a radical and empowering way. Drawing on her experience as a memoirist and a teacher of creative writing, Lily Dunn presents the ground-breaking idea that the craft of memoir itself can offer a form of transformation. Dunn demystifies the memoirist's art, helping readers to find meaning in raw experience and elevate the personal to the universal. She considers intriguing questions, from why our memories give greater significance to certain events to how we can write honestly without intruding too far into the lives of our loved ones. She also explores how writers are extending the memoir form to create something hybrid, playful and subversive. In an age of social media, filled with confessions, re-inventions and distortions of the self, the question of what it means to be an individual is more urgent than ever. Into being shows readers how to turn writing memoir into a journey of discovery - one that can be shared with the whole world.
Lily Dunn
Dr Lily Dunn teaches on the Advanced Narrative Nonfiction modules on the BA (Hons) Creative Writing, and also teaches Nonfiction and specifically memoir on the MA Creative Writing course.
Jenn Ashworth
Jenn Ashworth was born in Preston and studied at Cambridge and Manchester. Her novels include A Kind of Intimacy , The Friday Gospels and Fell . She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018.
