Autobiography example

A 300-word “autobiography” is a story that recreates an experience or experiences from the writer's life. A well-crafted story will use vivid sensory details to create a sense of time and place, and bring characters or incidents to life for the reader. The reader should thus be able to experience and share the feelings of the author.  A successful story should also build – or unravel – in a purposeful fashion, where each element in the story is a thread that contributes to the story’s pattern of meaning.  That central significance – which could be a conflict, revelation, problem, lesson learned, or question – provides the reason for telling the story and holds all the other elements together.  Finally, an enjoyable story will demonstrate creativity and originality in content and style.

Each story submitted to The Autobiography Project will be reviewed by a panel that consists of writers, writing teachers, aspiring authors, and readers (several of us fit into more than one category on that list!) 

Sonia Arora,
Humanities Teacher at Mastery Charter High School.

Mimi Barton,
Retired School District of Philadelphia Department Head, Member of the One Book, One Philadelphia committee.

Alison Hicks,
Founder and Director, Greater Philadelphia Wordshop Studio.

She is author of a novella, Love:  A Story of Images; her poetry, fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Eclipse, Amoskeag, The Ledge, Philadelphia Poets, Philadelphia Stories, HeartLodge and other journals.  A Pennsylvania Council on the Arts fellow in 2003, her work has been performed by InterAct Theatre’s Writing Aloud series and Ritz Theatre Company’s Poetry Is Alive program.  She received her MFA from the University of Arizona, and her undergraduate degree from Bryn Mawr College.   She founded GPWS in 1996 to support writers in the development of their individual voices and the practice of their craft.

Harriet Levin Millan,
Founding Director of the Writing Program at Drexel University.

Her first book of poetry, The Christmas Show (Beacon Press) was a Barnard New Women Poet’s Prize Winner and a winner of the Poetry Society of America’s Alice Fay di Castagnola Award. She contributes regularly to many national literary journals, such as Kenyon Review, Iowa Review, and Antioch Review. Her poems have been set to music by composer Sean Crouch and performed at Tanglewood Music Festival and have been chosen as a PEW disciplinary winner in poetry

Paul Nussbaum,
National Correspondent, Philadelphia Inquirer.

Jennifer Snead,
Director of the Kelly Writer’s House at the University of Pennsylvania.

Elaine Tassy,
Writer, visual artist and yoga instructor, based in Philadelphia.

 A former newspaper reporter, she has taught English and communications at Temple, La Salle, St. Joseph’s and Philadelphia Universities. She is currently endeavoring to have her novel, Gingerbread, and memoir, Shade in the Sun, published. She is also a creativity consultant and originator of the course “Finding Your Creative Voice,” taught last winter at Mt. Airy Learning Tree. An avid traveler of Haitian descent, she is a practicing Buddhist who speaks locally and nationally on racism reduction, stress management and child abuse prevention.

Nicola Twilley,
Director of Public Programming at the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary.

Below are the guidelines the panel will be using to review each autobiography in order to select some for publication.  The list describes some of the features that would characterize an autobiography awarded five, three or one points out of a maximum of five points.    

Details:
The story has a clear sense of time and place; selective and telling details; the things/events/people described feel tangible and distinct; descriptions are appropriate to the described item’s relative importance.

Impact:
The reader savors the experience of reading this story, and gains something from the telling; the story lingers in the reader’s mind and begs to be retold.

Clarity:
There is a clear sense of beginning and end; the story is easy to read. The reader is not left confused about anything; questions are clearly left ambiguous intentionally on the part of the author.

Structure:
Each narrative element is logically ordered to create a satisfying whole. Transitions are smooth and logical, with no irrelevant digressions. The writer guides the reader effortlessly through the story; the pacing is well crafted.

Originality:
The story seems fresh; both style and subject matter combine to present the familiar in a new light.

Content:
Subject matter is compelling; themes are significant and communicate a meaning that resonates with the writer’s audience.

Use of language/craftsmanship:
Writing is confident, rhythmic, and fluent, with varied sentence patterns and transitions. The writer’s voice is constant throughout: the reader feels they know the author. There may be evidence that the writer has taken risks or tried out new ideas.

Details:
Some details are vivid or specific, although one or two may lack direct relevance to the overall story. Some sense of time and place emerges; characters live and breathe, but lack depth. Supporting details begin to be more specific than general statements, but the reader nonetheless craves embellishment.

Impact:
The reader understands the story, but may not be moved by it or find it memorable.

Clarity:
The plot unfolds logically, but mechanically. The story feels as though it has a structure of sorts, and reaches closure. Few questions are left unanswered.

Unity:
Telling events are mixed in with non-essentials. Some digression may cause slight reader confusion; some elements seem not to contribute to – or may even actively distract from – the story’s meaning. Most transitions are logical, but may be repetitive. The writing may feel uneven – shallow in places, solid in others.

Originality:
The story seems familiar or obvious; the reader may be able to foretell events. Nonetheless, the story is enlivened through a sense of the writer’s personal investment.

Content:
The topic or subject matter is clear enough, but does not seem to transcend the personal or particular to communicate a deeper meaning.

Use of language/craftsmanship:
The reader gets some sense of the writer’s voice. The writing is workmanlike, and does not impede comprehension, but may feel clunky or repetitive. 

Details:
The story has little or no sense of time and place. Characters don’t seem to think or feel; descriptions are absent or clichéd to the point of abstraction. Statements are general, not precise.

Impact:
Difficult to read. The reader is left with many unanswered questions and no sense of closure. 

Clarity:
Seeming unrelated details wander in search of meaning – the reader wonders, “Why are you telling me this?” At the end of the story, the reader cannot describe what the story was about.

Structure:
The significant and trivial are intermingled; events or details are simply listed in a random sequence, without narrative logic. The reader struggles; the story doesn’t seem to go anywhere, or it seems to go all over the place. Digressions or over-elaborations interfere with reader understanding; the story never finds its pacing.

Originality:
Both writing and subject matter seem stale and uninspired. The writing lacks heart.

Content:
There is no definable subject matter or theme.  Narrative elements have not been developed, or meaning distilled.

Use of language/craftsmanship:
Many major and minor technical errors cause reader confusion. Sentence patterns are incomplete, with repetitive or ungainly phrasing.