Masters
Life writing has grown significantly in popularity and purchasing power over the past decade, positioning itself as a leading form of writing in the recreational reading industry (Dewey, 2022). Memoir is particularly popular, with readers looking primarily for authors of diverse backgrounds, such as LGBTIQA+ people, sharing their lived experience (Gilmore, 2019). The powerful impact of lived-experience stories being shared has been discussed, particularly in relation to the reader’s experience and broader cultural discussions on the life writer’s subject matter (Andersen & Hakemulder, 2024). Similarly, writing as an act of catharsis, particularly to digest and process traumatic or complex experiences for the author, has been well-documented as an effective therapeutic tool (Fang et al, 2024; Harrington et al, 2018). However, there has been limited interrogation of the impact of life writing on the author after publication, how they feel about their work’s publication, the decision-making process on what to include, the influencing factor of the publishing industry demands, and how reader perception impacts their relationship to both the text and the events they write about. Em's Research Master's will explore the experience of LGBTIQA+ life writers in Australia post-publication who have shared vulnerable elements of their queer experience in their writing.