Cover Photo: The author shares a scan of his SEPTA key and has left notes about what it reminds him of.
Photograph courtesy of the author

Writing the Autobiography of Your Stuff

The detritus of our lives can serve as a cannon for fiction or nonfiction writing.

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3.) Use what you have as a jumping-off point now for something else. Either try to merge two of your ideas in longer-form prose, or try this with another object and try to bridge the gaps between them. Have fun excavating the junk drawer of your mind.


Krys Malcolm Belc is the author of The Natural Mother of the Child: A Memoir of Nonbinary Parenthood. His essays have been featured in Granta, Guernica, Brevity, the Rumpus, and elsewhere. Krys lives in Philadelphia with his partner and their four young children. Photo credit Mark Likosky.Photo credit Mark Likosky.