What is life-writing?
Good question. Luckily, the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing has already provided a very good definiton, here. As you can see, there is a very diverse and open way to consider life-writing. In this project there is a Scottish focus, but there is always the hope that the four key texts (below) can lead discussions of other types of work in the field.
The Project
This project considers different modes of life-writing about historic and contemporary experiences of care in Scotland. The core texts to get going with are:
- Jessie Kesson, The White Bird Passes (1958)
- Dorothy K. Haynes, Haste Ye Back (1973)
- Jackie Kay, Red Dust Road (2010)
- Jenni Fagan, Ootlin (2024)
The purpose of this project is to make literature – and the practice of writing – beneficial for care-experienced adults today. The project will be centred around life-writing workshops examining memory. How does it work? How do we recall memories? What are the dangers of doing this, and how do we process what we have remembered? If remembering is a mediation of the past, what does the mediation of writing do for us in this complicated process? These are the questions the project will look to answer. The project is supported by expert partners across Scotland, including Aberlour Children’s Charity, CELCIS, and the Scottish Book Trust.