Autofiction is (usually) first-person writing, (usually) in the author’s name, which is not confessional, not memoir, not autobiography. It uses the point of view of the “I” to write into existence a kind of life not otherwise considered worthy of literature. The most interesting autofiction is by racialized writers, or queer writers, or working-class writers or writers with otherwise invalidated experiences. It centers what in the main tradition of the novel is the world of a minor character. It finds forms for other ways of life. We’ll be reading some established writers: Marguerite Duras, Audre Lorde, Annie Erneaux, Hervé Guibert, and some of my favorite recent queer and trans texts. We’ll be reading closely for techniques with which we can experiment to find our own form.