Reflections on Creative Nonfiction, Memoir, (Auto)Biography, Life-Writing, and the Essay
07 Dec 2012 at 20:53
Julija Šukys
Buddhism, Chris Arthur, CNF Conversations, Creative Nonfiction, E. B. White, Editing, Essays, Interviews, Ireland, Patrick Madden, Paul Valéry, Personal Essays, Structure, Uncategorized, Writing
Chris Arthur, On the Shoreline of Knowledge: Irish Wanderings. Iowa City: Shoreline Books, 2012. This is Part II of a two-part interview with Chris Arthur. Click here to access Part I. Julija Šukys: Like you, I’m obsessed with the writing of ordinary lives. The following passage is marked in pencil and with exclamation marks in [...]
02 Feb 2012 at 05:24
Julija Šukys
Blurbs, Camille Paglia, Countdown to Publication, Creative Nonfiction, David Bezmozgis, Epistolophilia, Friendship, George Orwell, Marketing, Publicity, Publishing, SheWrites, Stephen Elliott, Uncategorized
The title of this post comes from an essay by Alan Levinovitz called I Greet You in the Middle of a Great Career: A Brief History of Blurbs. He quotes George Orwell, who was a strict enemy of blurbs, calling them “disgusting tripe.” The article is an interesting history of praise of authors by authors. [...]
01 Sep 2011 at 02:19
Julija Šukys
Andrew Westoll, Biography, Canada, CanLit, Creative Nonfiction, Friendship, Uncategorized
Andrew Westoll. The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary: A Canadian Story of Resilience and Recovery. Harper Collins, 2011. Andrew Westoll’s The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary is a deeply humane account of chimpanzee lives, and a troubling testament to how monstrously we’ve treated our closest cousins on this planet. The book tells the story of thirteen former [...]
09 Aug 2011 at 19:56
Julija Šukys
Academia, Addiction, Autobiography, Catholicism, Children, Christianity, CNF Conversations, Conferences and Symposia, Creative Nonfiction, Daiva Markelis, Domesticity, Eastern Europe, Editing, Exile, Friendship, Language and Multilingualism, Lithuania, Louise DeSalvo, Memoir, Mothering, Publishing, Siberia, Uncategorized, Vilna Ghetto, Vilnius, Writing
Daiva Markelis, White Field, Black Sheep: A Lithuanian-American Life. University of Chicago Press, 2010. * Her parents never really explained what a D.P. was. Years later Daiva Markelis learned that “displaced person” was the designation bestowed upon European refugees like her mom and dad who fled communist Lithuania after the war. Growing up in the Chicago suburb [...]
04 May 2011 at 11:19
Julija Šukys
Academia, Creative Nonfiction, Domesticity, Louise DeSalvo, Memoir, Mothering, Personal Essays, Uncategorized, Virginia Woolf, Writing
One of my first Life-blood posts was a short review of Louise DeSalvo’s essay, “A Portrait of the Puttana as a Middle-Aged Woolf Scholar.” I came across that piece in my search for some frank and honest discussion by women about mothering and writing. My son was still very little (around two), and I was [...]
29 Mar 2011 at 10:19
Julija Šukys
Autobiography, Biography, Calls for Submissions, CNF Conversations, Creative Nonfiction, Life-blood, Marketing, Memoir, Personal Essays, Publishing, Uncategorized, Writing
I’d like to start a new section here called “CNF Conversations.” (CNF stands for Creative Nonfiction). I propose to do post shortish interviews with authors of recently published works of creative nonfiction: biographies, autobiographies, memoir, collections of essays, mixed genre, and whatever else, as long as it’s nonfiction. I’m looking for fine writing. To get [...]
28 Mar 2011 at 15:47
Julija Šukys
Autobiography, Biography, Creative Nonfiction, Exile, Lithuania, Memoir, Ona Šukienė, Personal Essays, Publishing, Research, Russia, Siberia, Stephen Elliott, Uncategorized, Villages, Writing
I’ve finally started writing my new book, Siberian Time, in earnest. It will tell the story of my grandmother’s 17-year exile to Siberia. Inevitably, too, it will tell stories about my family members: my father, his sisters, my cousins, my grandfather. Because my chosen forms are the personal essay and creative nonfiction, I almost always [...]
14 Mar 2011 at 11:59
Julija Šukys
Addiction, Autobiography, Conferences and Symposia, Creative Nonfiction, Journeys, Memoir, Sex, Stephen Elliott, Writing
Stephen Elliott, The Adderall Diairies: A Memoir of Moods, Masochism, and Murder (Graywolf Press, 2009). “. . . only a fool mistakes memory for fact” — Stephen Elliott, in the disclaimer to his memoir. I decided to buy this book after I heard its author speak at the AWP writers’ conference in Washington. He stood [...]
13 Feb 2011 at 15:17
Julija Šukys
Autobiography, Biography, Creative Nonfiction, Exile, Journeys, Language and Multilingualism, Life-blood, WG Sebald, Writing
WG Sebald, The Emigrants (New Directions, 1996 [English translation]). And the last remnants memory destroys – Epigraph to Chapter One I read this book over several months, putting it down then picking it up again weeks later. It’s a meandering and meditative text that gestures toward a point about memory, pain, and shame, rather than [...]
07 Dec 2010 at 15:55
Julija Šukys
Creative Nonfiction, Desirae Matherly, Life-blood, Memoir, Mothering, Personal Essays, Writing
Desirae Matherly, “The Denser of the Two.” Southern Humanities Review 43:2 (Spring 2009), 129-39. It could be that this sickness of mine is a type of shout from my body. My body groans with the stretching ligaments, the pressure of building gas against my abdomen, the swelling of my uterus. My vessel creaks. We swell [...]
