Robin Hemley
What Is the Autofictional Memoir and How to Write One
December 12, 2025
11 AM PST | 12 PM MST | 1 PM CST | 2 PM EST
Sign Up Here
Autofiction was “invented” in 1977 by French writer, Serge Doubrovsky when describing his novel Fils. Critics and writers in multiple countries have been debating ever since what the term means. In recent years, the term has become quite trendy in the English-speaking world. Depending who is writing it, autofiction can be seen as something close to memoir or something that resembles memoir but isn’t. There are even distinctions made between autofiction biografique and autofiction fantastique.
We’ll start with a discussion of my 2022 autofictional memoir, Oblivion, An After-Autobiography, which takes place in the afterlife in the Café of Minor Authors and Prague in 1912. It features my great grandmother Hannah and an old “frenemy” of mine, as well as such historical figures as Franz Kafka and his best friend Max Brod. While it’s a fantasy, it’s also a memoir of sorts. It would be helpful though not necessary to read some or all of Oblivion before.
This session will cover:
- The difference between autofiction and autobiographical fiction.
- How this type of memoir frees one up to alter events, timelines, and characters.
- How such memoirs can still stay true to an emotionally authentic roadmap of your life.
- How such memoirs admit your imagination into the party – a wider tent than most memoirs.
- How such memoirs can give you the permission you need to tell the story you want ot tell.
Bio
Robin Hemley is co-founder and president of Authorsatlarge.com, which brings writers on boutique writing retreats around the world and offers manuscript services. He has published sixteen books of fiction and nonfiction. His most recent books are the autofiction, Oblivion, An After-Autobiography (Gold Wake, 2022), The Art and Craft of Asian Stories: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology, co-authored with Xu Xi (Bloomsbury, 2021) and Borderline Citizen: Dispatches from the Outskirts of Nationhood (Nebraska, 2020, Penguin SE Asia, 2021). His forthcoming collection of essays is How to Change History: A Salvage Project (Nebraska, March, 2025). His work has been published and translated widely and he has received such awards as a Guggenheim Fellowship, a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation, three Pushcart Prizes in both nonfiction and fiction, The Nelson Algren Award for Fiction, The Independent Press Book Award for Memoir, among others. He is the Founder of the international nonfiction conference, NonfictioNOW and was the director of the Nonfiction Writing Program at The University of Iowa for nine years, inaugural director of The Writers’ Centre at Yale-NUS, Singapore, and is a graduate of The Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He is co-editor with Leila Philip of Speculative Nonfiction (Specualtivenonfiction.org). He has delivered readings, workshops, and lectures around the world and is a Professor Emeritus at The University of Iowa. The Digital Storytelling Lab at The University of Iowa was recently dedicated in his honor.
Robin Hemley’s website is Robinhemley.com. Subscribe to his Substack at Robinhemley.substack.com.
