A trendy word in publishing recently is “autofiction,” short for “autobiographical fiction.” The term isn’t new. It was first invented in 1977 by author Serge Doubrovsky when talking about his memoir-sh novel, Fils.
And what about those Creative Nonfiction essays that fill literary magazines? (A goldmine for memoir writers.) Can you call them autofiction?
Unfortunately, “autofiction” is not an official category in the publishing world, according to Publishers Weekly.
That means authors still have to decide if what they’ve written is fiction or nonfiction before they publish it, so bookstores will know whether to put it on the fiction or nonfiction shelf.
Guidelines say if there are real people in it and all the incidents really happened, you can call it nonfiction, even if you’ve changed the names of the real people. But if some events or characters are made up, you’re better off calling it fiction.
Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog 
Reblogged this on Kim's Musings.
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Sounds like Kerouac’s books (at least “On The Road” and “The Dharma Bums”) would be a classic examples of “autofiction” (suggesting that autofiction would still fit, like Kerouac’s books, in the “fiction” section of the bookstore if you have to choose fiction/nonfiction — what do you think?)
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