The genre of memoir is read so widely that it now ‘rivals fiction in popularity and critical esteem and exceeds it in cultural currency’ (Couser 2012, p.3). This call for papers urges scholars from around the globe to find and describe the practice of writing and reading memoir within their own borders as a cultural phenomenon. How does it differ from country to country? How has it evolved? What are the ethical constraints of different countries? Who are each nation's unique memoirists?

We aim to compile a comprehensive and academically entertaining snapshot of the genre. There is a long and deep history of memoir, most agree, that begins with Saint Augustine’s Confessions. Scholars concur that the contemporary surge in memoir as a favoured genre began in the mid-1990s, with Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, and it has kept building in momentum. Not only are well-known authors rendering their memoirs to acclaim, but seemingly ordinary people finding themselves in extraordinary circumstances, are finding an audience. Sportspeople, politicians, sex workers, trauma victim/survivors, are telling and sharing their stories as a mode of knowing the self. 

Sue Joseph, Bunty Avieson and Fiona Giles, the editors, are seeking scholarly essays for this book (of up to 300 pages) to be published in 2017. We are hoping to work with a major international publisher towards this end. While we welcome papers from all countries, submissions must be in English.

Section One: The Memoir in History: life-writing throughout the ages

Chapters here could focus on: 

Saint Augustine
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Mary MacLane and the sex memoir
Holocaust memoir
War memoir

Section Two: The ethical/theoretical dimensions of memoir: political, fabricated, celebrity 

Chapters here might look at:

The PR of celebrity memoir 
Consent: whose story is it?
Memoir writing about the dead
Competing memoir
Is memoir literary journalism?
Fake memoir 

Section Three: The practice of memoir writing

Chapters here might examine:
Parental: patriography; matriography
Pathography: narratives of illness and death
Mis-mem
Sports memoir
Personal trauma narrative
Political memoir
Ghosting the memoir
Erotica: kiss and tell memoir
Travel memoir
Memoir and comedy
Nobody memoirs

These subjects are neither prescriptive nor exhaustive. They merely indicate a possible range of topics that might create new ways of understanding the genre. There are clearly many other equally important routes to explore.

Please send 200-word chapter abstracts to Sue Joseph at sue.joseph@uts.edu.au by July 30, 2016. Selected contributions (5-6,000 words) will be confirmed by September 30, 2016. First copy will be due by February 30, 2017. The editors will send out for peer review, then return the copy with any suggested changes by April 30, 2017, with the final copy deadline of May 30, 2017. 

Bunty Avieson is a lecturer in the Department of Media and Communications at the University of Sydney, where she teaches news writing. A former journalist she has also published three novels, a novella and two memoirs. The most recent, The Dragon’s Voice: How modern media found Bhutan, was about the year she spent in Bhutan as a media consultant funded by the UN.

Fiona Giles is a senior lecturer in the Department of Media and Communications at the University of Sydney, where she teaches graduate courses in creative nonfiction and feature writing. Her most recent publications have been on profile writing, and Gonzo journalism in Australia, and she is currently researching Australian memoir since the 1960s.

Sue Joseph has worked as an academic, teaching print journalism at the University of Technology, Sydney since 1997. She now teaches journalism and creative writing, particularly creative long form non-fiction writing, in both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. She has written three books and is currently writing a fourth on Australian creative non-fiction writers. Her research interests are around sexuality, secrets and confession, framed by the media; ethics, trauma; reflective professional practice; and Australian creative non-fiction.