Dates: 30 September to 25 November, 2024  

Time: 11am-1pm

Venue:Bishopston Library, Wilton, Cork 

Fee: €220  

Closing date for registrations: 20th of September 2024

Course Overview: 

This course will be divided into two parts of 4 weeks each.  

In the first part of the course we will learn about bringing one’s own life to the page and the consequent blurring of fictional boundaries in the endlessly debated genre known as autofiction, and various controversies surrounding the form whilst telling our own stories and creating new potential narratives. 

The tenets of autofiction (according to French writer Serge Doubrovsky) are its roots in nonfiction, the labeling of these works as novels rather than autobiographies and a choice to experiment with chronology. In other words, as a form that defines itself as fiction while using, and taking liberties with the facts.  

Paying close attention to the work of great authors such as Virginia Woolf, Alice Walker, James Baldwin, Ben Lerner, Deborah Levy, Claudia Rankine, Lucia Berlin and Annie Ernaux amongst others, we will explore the radical openness and transparency the form offers us and what writer David Shields describes as ‘the lure and blur of the real’. 

We will aim to produce one piece of longer work or alternatively two micro flash CNF pieces with the opportunity to workshop the piece and receive constructive feedback. We will talk about possible venues for the work and how to present your work as a pitch or finished piece for publication.  

In the second part of the course we will look at the resurgence of the ‘lyrical essay’ a hybrid form of creative non-fiction which can comprise a combination of literary essay, poetry and memoir. Looking at the work of contemporary writers such as Brandon Taylor, Tice Cin and Zadie Smith we will discuss examples of the lyric essay to show how much diversity there is in the form and the ways contemporary subjects on anything from fast fashion to Tinder can be woven into lyric essays. This will also include the opportunity to develop and workshop one idea for a lyric essay. 

Course Content: 

Course Schedule (max 500 words): 

Week 1 – Brief Introductions, free writing, reading around personal memoir essay genre. In-class writing exercise, discussing historical proponents of the form such as Virginia Woolf, James Baldwin, George Orwell, Joan Didion  etc. and irish writers using the form today such as Joanna Walsh, Doireann Ní Ghríofa and Sinéad Gleeson.   

Week 2 – Autofiction. Free writing,  the ‘French school’ – looking at Proust, Annie Ernaux, Marguerite Duras and Hervé Guiber and modern autofiction writers such as Lauren Elkin, Nina Bouraoui and others. Class discussion and writing exercise. Exercise set for homework. 

Week 3 – Dismantling autofiction. Free writing. Discussion on the broaching of a new form of storystelling focusing on intersectionality, gender, race, and feminism in the genre, looking at mainly American-based writers such as Audre Lorde, Ocean Vuong, Ben Lerner and Eula Bliss. Class discussion and writing exercise.  

Week 4 – Deborah Levy and the living autobiography. We will discuss Levy’s work including her trio of ‘living’ autofictional work, her preceding novels and discuss the possibilities and the ramifications of blurring life and literature. Workshopping of week 2 exercise. 

Week 5 – The history of the lyric essay and how it has changed. Free writing, reading of different examples of the form, class discussion and writing exercise centred on topic, subject selection and chronology. Close reading of Citizen by Claudia Rankine and Bluets by Maggie Nelson. Exercise set for homework. 

Week 6 – The lyric essay in literary journals and small presses. Free writing, selection of journals (provided by me) to find examples of lyric essays and writing experiment responding to theme. Class discussion and writing exercise.  

Week 7 – Workshopping of Week 5 homework and class discussion. Editing and proofreading your work, referencing systems and how to cite sources correctly. 

Week 8 – Modern hybrid styles explored, finding your comfort zone in genre. Submitting your work. Questions and answers and close 2nd reading of workshopped pieces if desired.  

Course Lecturer : 

Lucy Holme is a writer and mother from Kent who lives in Cork, Ireland. She studied English Literature and Language at Manchester University and then travelled the world, working in the private yachting industry as a chief stewardess and purser. After training as a wine sommelier onboard yachts and in the restaurant industry in London, she spent ten years studying for her wine diploma whilst raising three small children and working in the wine industry in Cork city. Her poems feature in The Stinging Fly, Southword, Atrium, Poetry Wales, Wild Court, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, Bad Lilies, The Interpreter’s House, and Janus Lit amongst others. She was shortlisted for The London Magazine Poetry Prize 2023 and has four poems forthcoming over the next two issues. Her creative non-fiction has most recently been published in Banshee Literary Journal, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, and Annie Journal and is forthcoming in The Well Review and she has published short fiction in a number of small journals. She has just received a distinction in her MA in Creative Writing at University College Cork and her debut chapbook, Temporary Stasis, which was shortlisted for The Patrick Kavanagh Award, was published by Broken Sleep Books in August 2022. She is co-editor of new Cork based literary and visual arts journal, The Four Faced Liar.  Requirements: 

Entry Requirements:

Applicants must be at least 18 years old at course commencement. 

Contact Details for Further Information: 

Email: shortcourses@ucc.ie  

Please note our refund policy as follows: 

100% refund if student cancels 1 week prior to course commencement, less €50 processing fee.

100% refund if student's course is cancelled due to insufficient numbers.