Incorporating Memoir and Biography Writing Towards Social Justice and Inclusion

BOOK NOW – 25 spaces for PGR researchers for a FREE WORKSHOP at AGA:

‘Incorporating Memoir and Biography Writing, Towards Inclusion and Social Justice’ with Rodge Glass and Sorcha Dallas supported by SGSAH and Strathclyde English and Creative Writing.

🗓️ Saturday 16th August 10am-2pm

📍The Alasdair Gray Archive

– Support available to all participants to assist with travel and access costs

– Lunch included (please specify dietary requirements when booking)

🎫 booking essential via info@thealasdairgrayarchive.org

This session will look at how to approach biography and memoir writing from Glass’s extensive expertise across print and taught forms. References will include approaching personal biographies of Michel Faber, family and Alasdair Gray. Glass will look at his own interdisciplinary approach to gathering materials including oral histories, audio/video, physical and digital ephemera in creating a rich resource from which to draw. Attendees will be supported through steps and good practice guidelines and will have the opportunity to test this out with a sample piece of writing. Feedback will be offered.

AGA’s Custodian Sorcha Dallas will then discuss biography in relation to Alasdair Gray and the work AGA are doing in supporting biographies of others connected to Gray via mapping disappearing and overlooked histories.

Glass will end the session by looking at the ethics of writing, discussing examples that champion marginalised histories, helping the attendees to consider decolonising academia with a focus on under-represented or studied demographics. This session will be evaluated and feedback used to support the creation of a biography and memoir writing resource to be shared at an online session in autumn.