This book showcases a unique, innovative form for contemporary life narrative scholarship. It positions the essay as a unique nexus of creative and critical practice.

Introduction 1. Writing (from) the Rubble: Reflections on the August 4, 2020 Explosion in Beirut, Lebanon 2. Will the Real Subject Please Stand Up? Autobiographical Voices in Biography 3. Speculative Biography and Countering Archival Absences of Women Clowns in the Circus 4. 'A Man of Violent and Ungovernable Temper': Can Fiction Fill Silences in the Archives? 5. Killing the Silent Witness: The Benefits of an Authorial Stance as Interpreter in Future- focused Natural Biography 6. How to be a Fan in the Age of Problematic Faves 7. Letter Writing and Space for Women's Self- expression in Janet Frame's Owls Do Cry and Jane Campion's An Angel at My Table 8. In Parallel With My Actual Diary: On Re- writing an Exile 9. Metaphor and Neonatal Death: How Stories Can Help When a Baby Dies at Birth 10. Three Wheels on My Wagon: An Account of an Attempt to Use Life Writing to Access Shared Family Narratives After Bereavement 11. Becoming a Traitor 12. My Obscure Career as an Aspiring Poet 13. Archive of the (Mostly) Unspoken: A Queer Project of Caring for the Dead