My Diary Diary

This project uses diary writing as a methodology for undertaking research into 11 diaries of women writers. Part autoethnography, part critical discussion, my diary diary charts a month of reading diaries, reading about diaries and keeping a diary every working day. The curated journals are read in relation to each other to try to understand legacies of how the diary form has allowed them to write themselves while also contributing to wider knowledge about women’s lives and feminisms. This essay seeks discussion of the diary form and evidence of the lived experiences of women within the journals, charting how societal expectations and conventions around what women’s role should be, within a range of historical contexts, is often in conflict with the individual’s desire for self-development, creativity and a meaningful life. The diary provides a space for rebellion, for living the desired (private) life of thought and opinion and self-expression. By bringing individual works together into a curated lineage of women’s diaries, I seek affinities, connections and the role the diary plays in both writing the self and also understanding the context of women’s writings on their own lives, offering my diary diary as part of this ongoing feminist work.