Call for Chapters: Literary journalism and the author’s memoir: A collision of form
Our essential aim in this proposed Palgrave text is to examine the memoir by either a journalist or writer who uses the craft of literary journalism to render their narrative.
Historically, conflating literary journalism and memoir opens up a polemical debate; interesting and polarising. As the editors, we are smiling – we believe disruption is a fundamentally healthy aspect of any academic endeavour. There is nothing sanitised nor discrete about literary journalism, which has given us decades of enjoyment and wonder, and its genre borders were never set in stone.
Indeed, scholars all over the world breach the Anglo borders constantly: the Spanish and Portuguese crónica; France’s reportage littéraire; Poland’s reportaz; literarischer journalismus in Germany; bibun kisha in Japan; baogao wenxue in China, and ocherk in Russia. Each one of these forms disrupts and enriches the Anglophone canon of literary journalism, dominant for so long.
Keeping this in mind, our aim with this text is to make a strong argument that some memoir perform as literary journalism. In order to narrow this down, we are looking for analyses of memoir by either a journalist or writer using the many elemental facets of literary journalism, from any national canon.
As an example, below are elements that US author Constance Hale puts forward as fundamental to the craft:
• precisely painted scenes, to put the reader into the story;
• fleshed-out characters to make the reader care about the story;
• not quotes, per se, but dialogue between characters;
• plot, or actions that unfold over time and lead us toward an endpoint;
• paradox, to give the story twists and turns;
• suspense to keep the story taut and thrilling;
• dramatic conflict (between characters, cultural forces, or communities);
• shapely sentences to pull the reader through paragraphs;
• inventive metaphors that surprise us;
• the presence of a narrator, what many call ‘voice’;
• some sense of relationship to the reader, viewer, or listener, so that there is a connection between storyteller and audience.
We know there are other literary journalism elements utilised around the world and are eager to read about them.
Deadline for abstracts: Please send a 200-word abstract to sue.joseph@adelaide.edu.au and rkeeble@lincoln.ac.uk by October 31, 2026.
We aim to submit our proposal to the Palgrave Studies in Literary Journalism, edited by Sue Joseph, Willa McDonald and Matthew Ricketson , by the end of 2026.
Deadline for 6-7,000 word chapters is October 31, 2027, with a 2028 publication date.