Why did Chee decide to title his collection “How to Write an Autobiographical Novel?”

This question makes clear that Chee intended his collection to be somewhat didactic, that part of its purpose was distilling the lessons he has learned in his coming of age and his career as a writer. Prompting students to unpack the title also lays bare one of the collection’s consistent themes: the connection between art and life, and the way that imagination is deeply rooted in personal experience.

Who is Chee’s audience for these essays? Who do you think is his imagined readership?

While Chee’s collection grapples with universal themes of hardship, strife and success, his essays are also explicitly geared toward those who engage in creative endeavors, and to writers in particular. Much of the collection is less about the universal truths that Chee learned as he travelled through...