Biographical Fictioning was an Art Writing Open Masterclass (Monday 31 October – Tuesday 1 November 2022) focussing on creative approaches to biographical, memoir, and life-writing, and drawing on alternative modes of biographical writing including autofiction, mythobiography, New Narrative, fictocriticism and epistolary or diaristic forms of art writing. Led by Laura Haynes and presented by artists and academics from the Art Writing programme and invited guests including Claire-Louise Bennett (Checkout 19, Vintage & Pond, Fitzcarraldo Editions) and Michael Pedersen (Boy Friends, Faber & Faber), the Autumn School centred lyricism and poetics to consider love, homage, preservation and attachment in the impulse or desire of writing with or about others. Biographical Fictioning, Part 2 proposes, according to Anthony Reed’s idea of post-lyric intervention, that lyric abides in the space between subjects. Dwelling on this complexity, we questioned if profound knowing requires the affective, creative and vernacular dimension of the lyric.
 
Led by writer, editor and Art Writing Programme Leader Dr Laura Haynes, the Autumn School Masterclass included a series of presentations and practical workshops in which participants worked with established and emergent writers, artists and academics as part of an intensive writing workshop to learn, develop and apply expansive and alternative modes of biographical writing and/or visual practice. The workshop supported participants to compose, experience and evaluate new writing as part of an iterative learning experience.