9 April 2018
Everyone knows that writers mine characters, details, and events from their own lives. After all, how could anyone avoid it? (See also the fact that every AWP, you are sure to spot at least one person wearing some version of this shockingly clever t-shirt.) But sometimes those borrowed details turn out to be rather, shall we say, pointed. Even barbed. (Or just Hemingway swinging a drunken club at whomever was nearby.) Below, a few cases of authors who have drawn very unflattering fictional portraits of real people, including other writers, famous people, and their nearest and dearest (unsurprisingly, these categories often overlap). Maybe we all really should be paying attention to those t-shirts.
