The Death Of Bees and Closed Doors. Exploring the Impact of Experience and Trauma in Creative Writing.

A Ph.D. by publication comprising two of my books The Death Of Bees and Closed Doors exploring the impact of experience on creative writing practices and techniques used when writing from personal experience. The exegesis is accompanied by a reflective and critical examination aiming to analyze how authors creatively translate experience into their work.

Reflecting on my own creative process, I propose a critical inspection of the autobiographical and the personal influences that impacted the creation of various narrative personas behind The Death Of Bees and Closed Doors. Specifically, this thesis reveals the negotiation between real and fictive in order to preserve the truth. The exegesis will also look at how an experiential autoethnographic approach can raise awareness of key social and political issues through the invention of narrative derived from recognizable experiences.

In conclusion, I propose narrative persona is inextricably linked to personal experience in all my published work and this contention can be proved within the exegesis, meaningfully contributing to literary discussion regards creative techniques used by authors to translate the autobiographic in their creative work. This unique research and revelation reinvigorates the debate around the impact of creatively sharing trauma in fiction and the effect this has on the reader seeking authentic narratives reflecting a shared and universal experience.