Autobibliography
“Autobibliography” is a new word I blended from autobiography and bibliography to describe books that shape and inform a person’s life. This collection of books exhibited in the Art Building Gallery at Portland State University were the collected autobibliography of a class at Columbia River Correctional Institute (CRCI), a prison for men in northeast Portland. The students read autobiographies and write their own as part of a collaborative writing and publishing project that I co-lead with artist Harrell Fletcher.
During the week students work on their writing and in class on Fridays, they read aloud what they wrote. Together with the other students, we respond with feedback, questions, and suggestions. Other books are often mentioned duringthese discussions. I noted and compiled them into this collection, along with autobiographies suggested by Harrell, visiting artists, and me.
When students finish writing, we will coordinate the editing, design, illustration, and publication of their autobiographies. As experts on their own lives, the class is an opportunity for students to write and share their life stories with a broad audience. The books were relocated to the prison after the exhibit.
Autobibliography collection:
You Can’t Win by Jack Black
Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur
Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Alaska by James Michener
Annals of the Former World by John McPhee
Swann’s Way, volume one of In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
Paradise Lost by John Milton (not displayed)
The Divine Comedy Volume 1: Inferno by Dante Alighieri
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Elsewhere by Dean Koontz
Billy Summers by Stephen King
The Shining by Stephen King
Suttree by Cormac McCarthy
Turtle Island by Gary Snyder
Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems by Gary Snyder
Watership Down by Richard Adams
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell by Tucker Max
Finding Fish: A Memoir by Antwone Fisher
Boy by Roald Dahl
Going Solo by Roald Dahl
An American Childhood by Annie Dillard
Coming of Age in Mississippi: The Classic Autobiography
of Growing Up Poor and Black in the Rural South by Anne Moody
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon
Brown by Richard Rodriguez
Days of Obligation by Richard Rodriguez
This is Not for You by Richard Brown (not displayed)
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. (not displayed)
Autobibliography project and exhibit:
Laura Glazer
Writing and publishing project:
Harrell Fletcher and Laura Glazer
Participants:
Aaron, Brandon, Ivan, Marvin, Messiah, Michael, Quinton, Ramon, Santino, T.J., Zach
Visiting artists:
Caryn Aasness, Visiting Assistant Professor Dr. Kiara Hill, Morgan Hornsby
Bookseller:
Belmont Books
Special thanks:
Rita Glazer, James Hanley, Becca Kauffman, Oregon State University Press
Location:
Portland, Oregon
Year:
2022