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<p class=""><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="font-size:12pt">Virginia Woolf Miscellany </span></i><span style="font-size:12pt">CFP</span><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span>
</p><p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">Biofiction, literature
that names its protagonist after an actual historical figure, has become a
dominant literary form in recent years.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>Margaret Atwood, J.M. Coetzee, Joyce Carol Oates, Colum McCann, Colm Tóibín,
Peter Carey, and Hilary Mantel are just a few luminaries who have authored
spectacular biographical novels and won major awards, including the Pulitzer
Prize, the Man Booker Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the
Pen/Faulkner Award, and the National Book Award.<em><span style="font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""> </span></em>
With regard to the rise and legitimization of biofiction, Michael Cunningham’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Hours</i> is a crucial text not just
because it won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction but also because it features
Virginia Woolf as a character. Since the publication of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:
normal">The Hours </i>in 1998, there have been numerous biographical novels
about Woolf, including</span><span style="font-size:12pt"> Gillian Freeman’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">But Nobody
Lives in Bloomsbury</i> (2006),<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"> </i></span><span style="font-size:12pt">Susan Sellers’ <i>Vanessa and Virginia</i> (2009), </span><span style="font-size:12pt">Priya Parmar’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Vanessa and her Sister</i> (2015), Norah
Vincent’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Adeline</i> (2015), and Maggie
Gee’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Virginia Woolf in Manhattan</i>
(2015). <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>While there have been multiple
novels about other historical figures, such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
Emily Dickinson, Nat Turner, Eliza Lynch, Friedrich Nietzsche, Henry James, and
Katherine Mansfield, it appears that Woolf has inspired the most and some of
the best biographical novels. </span><span style="font-size:12pt"></span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">This
is ironic, because while Woolf is known for bending and blending genres, she
was never able to imagine her way to the biographical novel—she certainly came
close in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Orlando</i>, which is not a
biographical novel because she does not name the protagonist Vita, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Flush</i>, which fits the definition of a
classical historical novel rather than a biographical novel.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>However, Woolf’s theoretical approach to
imaginative biography (voiced especially in her essays “The New Biography”
[1927] and “The Art of Biography” [1939], prompted by Harold Nicolson’s and
Lytton Strachey’s contemporary biographical productions), encouraged writers to
</span><span style="font-size:12pt">push
the Victorian limits of the genre and explore new (“odd”) possibilities</span><span style="font-size:12pt">. </span><span style="font-size:12pt">Her discussions
on the new directions and liberties that biography took at the beginning of the
twentieth century</span><span style="font-size:12pt"> has certainly paved the way for the current postmodernist literary
genre of biofiction.</span><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span>
</p><p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">The
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Virginia Woolf Miscellany</i> seeks
submissions about Woolf, Bloomsbury, and biofiction.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Questions to consider include: To what degree
has Woolf’s work inspired aesthetic developments that led to the rise and
legitimization of contemporary biofiction? What in Woolf’s life makes her
particularly suited as a protagonist of biofiction? How does contemporary
biofiction give us new access to Woolf, her family and friends, and
Bloomsbury?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>How do contemporary biofictions
challenge and reimagine traditional ways of thinking about Woolf’s life and
works?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>How is Woolf’s work and life used
in biofiction to advance ways of thinking that even Woolf could not have
imagined? Is it ethical to use Woolf’s life in a contemporary novel?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Can an author simply make things up about an
actual historical figure such as Woolf?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>And is it ethical for an author to alter facts about a person’s life in
order to communicate what is considered a more important “truth”?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>These are just a few questions the rise of
biofictions about Woolf raise.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Please
feel free to generate and answer your own set of questions.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p>
<p class=""><span style="font-size:12pt">Submissions
should be no longer than 2500 words.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">
</span>Send inquiries and submissions to Michael Lackey (</span><span style="font-size:12pt"><a href="mailto:lacke010@morris.umn.edu"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Arial">lacke010@morris.umn.edu</span></a></span><span style="font-size:12pt">) or Todd Avery (</span><span style="font-size:12pt"><a href="mailto:Todd_Avery@uml.edu"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Arial">Todd_Avery@uml.edu</span></a></span><span style="font-size:12pt">) by July 15, 2017.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Publication is slated for the </span><span style="font-size:12pt">Spring/Summer 2018 issue.</span><span style="font-size:12pt"></span></p>
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