Tim Tomlinson, founder of the New York Writers Workshop and Professor of Creative Writing at NYU's Global Liberal Studies program, joins Literary Shanghai for this insightful discussion.

In 2017, the New Yorker published “A Letter to My Mother That She Will Never Read” by Ocean Vuong. They called it memoir. In 2019, that memoir appeared as the opening of Vuong’s novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.

So which is it: memoir or fiction? Or does it matter? Does it matter in your own work? Fun with Facts and Fiction will address these questions by looking at various writers whose work/s are grounded in varying degrees of personal experience, including Tim’s own, and hopefully, the talk and the samples will provide, if not guidelines, options for writers who walk the ever-narrowing lines between fact and fiction.

The event is free, but please RSVP: literaryshanghai@gmail.com