8 meetings

6 May to 1 July 2025 (no class 27 May)

The best examples of life-writing and memoir have always been those that tell stories through highly generative and creative ways of seeing the world. The ‘memoirist’ is a particular kind of storyteller within literary traditions across the globe and this course will call attention to the most innovative and nuanced examples, from nature and travel writing to biography and autofiction.

Together, we will discuss and critique these varied approaches to memoir and life-writing, using the reading list books as exemplars and starting points. We'll explore these strong and emerging genres that can blend autobiographical writing and non-fiction. How do we create an engaging 'story' that binds our material together? What can be included and what should be edited out? How best to structure material? 

Every week, we'll do exercises to explore aspects of the craft of writing, including how to progress and structure your writing, how to develop an individual narrative voice, mapping your plot, and how to integrate non-fiction material. Can dialogue be included/created? What kind of source material can be used? How do we navigate the vagaries of memory and differing points of view? Do we need to get the permission of others? 

Davina Quinlivan is the author of ‘Shalimar: A Story of Place and Migration’ (Little Toller Books, 2022) and ‘Possessions’ (September Publishing, 2026). She holds a PhD in Film from Kings College London (2010). She has almost two decades of experience teaching cinema, art and aesthetics in Higher Education and publishing as an academic, journalist and creative writer.

She is currently an Artistic Lead with ‘Emblaze’, an Arts Council England funded imprint of Paper Nations, a creative writing incubator with Bath Spa University, illuminating diverse writing in the South West; she is also an AHRC-funded Story Fellow with StoryArcs. ‘Shalimar’ was specially selected to launch the new audiobook platform Spiracle Audio in 2022 and was shortlisted for the Best Creative Writing Book by the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment.

Her creative non-fiction has been published with The Willowherb Review, Litro, The Clearing, Caught By the River, Writers Rebel, Quay Words (Literature Works). She is a co-founding member of The New School of the Anthropocene and, for several years, ran the creative writing seminar series F: For Flanerie at The Freud Museum, London. 

Week 1: Time/Travel: Davina Quinlivan, Shalimar: A Story of Place and Migration (Little Toller Books, 2022); Jeff Young, Wild Twin (Little Toller Books, 2024) 

Week 2: Body and Voice: Margo Jefferson, Constructing a Nervous System (Granta, 2022) 

Week 3: Memory, Stars, Healing: Nona Fernandez, Voyager: Constellations of Memory (Daunt, 2023) 

Week 4: Nature, Poetry: Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, The Grassling A Geological Memoir (2019, Allen Lane) 

Week 5: Encountering A Sense of Place: Noreen Masud, A Flat Place (2023, Hamish Hamilton); Deborah Levy, Real Estate (Hamish Hamilton, 2021). 

Week 6: Magic and the Occult: Dalia Neis: Zephyrian Spools: An Essay, A Wind (Knives Forks Spoon Press, 2020). 

Week 7: Sacred Language, Landscape and the Living World: Amina Khan, The Slough of Despond (Guillemot Press, 2024); Tom Bullough, Sarn Helen, A Journey Through Wales, Past, Present and Future (Granta, 2023) 

Week 8: 'Taper Burns': 21st Century Resistance and Transformation, extracts from Davina Quinlivan, Possessions: A Memoir (September Publishing, 2025); Naomi Klein, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World (Penguin, 2023); Jen Calleja, Goblinhood: Goblin as a Mode (Rough Trade, 2024) 

£180