Reflections on Creative Nonfiction, Memoir, (Auto)Biography, Life-Writing, and the Essay
As I pack my bag for Siberia, I realize how long it’s been since I travelled light. The last time was ten years ago when I went to India and Nepal. My friend Anna and I went for three weeks, each carrying a modest bag containing a sheet, mosquito net and a few articles of [...]
Though it feels like old news now, I realized this morning that I hadn’t yet posted the fact the my second book, a biography of the Holocaust rescuer, Ona Šimaitė, is now forthcoming. It’s official: the contract has been signed, sealed and delivered. The University of Nebraska Press will publish my second book (as it [...]
16 Jul 2010 at 10:25
Julija Šukys
Autobiography, Creative Nonfiction, Domesticity, Life-blood, Patrick Madden, Personal Essays, Writing
Patrick Madden, Quotidiana. University of Nebraska Press, 2010. I started reading Quotidiana because I liked the title and because I’ve recently discovered how much I love the essay form. Good essays take the small, apparently throwaway details of everyday life and find in them universal truths and occasionally devastating beauty. Joan Didion is one master [...]
12 Jul 2010 at 07:34
Julija Šukys
Academia, Grad School, Linda Hutcheon, Research, University of Toronto, Writing
I arrived home from a week of camp with my three-year-old to learn that the University of Toronto is threatening to close the Centre for Comparative Literature, where I earned my PhD. If you are engaged in writing and reading, if you value creative thought, innovative teaching and scholarship, and believe in cross-cultural dialogue, please [...]
02 Jul 2010 at 09:26
Julija Šukys
Autobiography, Biography, Domesticity, Exile, Language and Multilingualism, Lithuania, Personal Essays
Today, my essay about my maternal grandmother appeared in the Globe and Mail newspaper. It’s a text I started a few months ago, while she was still alive. For years, even decades, my grandmother barely aged. My mother and I marvelled at how well she was doing, and celebrated each birthday as a gift. But [...]
