University hosts international biographers conference
Around 350 delegates will be swapping life stories from around the world at the University of Sussex this week, at the 7th International Auto/Biography Association (IABA) conference. The international conference will host lectures from some of the world's leading autobiographers and biographers, with contributions from archivists, literary critics, historians and novelists, discoursing on the subject of 'Life Writing and Intimate Publics'. The biennial conference, hosted on campus by the University's Centre for Life History and Life Writing Research, will be opened today (Monday 28 June 2010) by writer and broadcaster Simon Fanshawe, who is also Chair of Council, the University's governing body. Delegates will be gathering on the steps outside the Chichester building on campus (Tues 28 June at 10.15am) for a photograph before embarking on a busy programme of lectures and workshops on the theme of life stories from around the world. Conference guests include biography "celebs" such as Michael Holroyd (President of the Royal Society for Literature); memoirist Blake Morrison; novelist and Orange prize short-lister Rachel Cusk; and The Observer 's celebrity biography reviewer and writer Jenny Diski. University of Sussex speakers include Dorothy Sheridan of the University's Mass-Observation Archive and the documentary film-maker Lizzie Thynne.
