Thanks, Tom!

As someone who rarely writes fiction but aspires to do more in the future (i.e., inexperienced), and a lifelong novel reader, I don’t see anything wrong with autobiographical fiction. It seems to be the case more often than not. Charlotte Bronte drew on her experiences in a school for poor girls and her experience as a governess in writing Jane Eyre , and Hemingway (not my favorite) drew on personal experiences at length. And so on. Chunks of personal experience seem fine, but if the whole story and all the characters are real, well, then you’ve crossed that line.

There’s new essay collection out by novelist Alexander Chee called How to Write an Autobiographical Novel.” I haven’t read it, but have heard great things about it.

Even though I haven’t read it, I wasn’t above stealing his process for this book —he turned to nonfiction when he got stuck in his fiction writing. It was the inspiration for my “writing memoir” series here on Medium.