The Non-fiction That Shapes Us: Jarred McGinnis
Hinterland authors reflect on the non-fiction that inspires their own writing.
Jarred McGinnis was chosen by The Guardian as one of the UK’s ten best emerging writers. His debut novel The Coward was selected for BBC 2’s Between the Covers and the French edition won the First Novel Prize. His second book, There is No Meant to Be, won The Eccles Centre & Hay Festival Writer’s Award and will be published by Harvill in Spring 2026. Jarred’s piece, ‘In Billions of Years the Sun will Swallow the Earth’, appeared in Hinterland Issue 12.
I've recently finished my second book, There is No Meant to Be. It's a speculative autobiography that traces my family from six generations before my birth in the high plains desert of the American Southwest to the night after my death in Marseille, France twenty-five years later. The story published in Hinterland Issue 12 was the germ of this book. Inevitably, when considering the question of what non-fiction inspired my own writing, I turned to books that I thought pushed the form of non-fiction and memoir. Here are some that first came to my mind:
The Stolen Bicycle by Wu Ming-Yi: I don't care about bicycles but Wu does and that's what makes me care. He expertly mixes the historical, the personal and the fantastic. It's only the European tradition that seems to struggle to reconcile quotidien with the supernatural. This book unlocked that piece of the puzzle for my book.
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado: This book above all others set the bar for what to achieve. She was always on the right side of the misery memoir while simultaneously playing (and taking chances) with form.
Cheri by Jo Ann Beard: An exercise in extreme empathy for the title character. Told simply, directly with no fireworks which is why it is such a gorgeous book. Reading anything Beard writes is time well spent.
Wish I Was Here by M. John Harrison: Another book that plays with form. Harrison turns the memoir form inside out. Some of the best insights on the writing life that have been written.
The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston: This book is in my pantheon. Constantly undermining the author's authority but convincingly. It's a goddamn magic trick.
A Man’s Place by Annie Ernaux: To write of family and self without pretension and dramatic irony. It's subtly the hardest and the most obvious problem with the form of autofiction/memoir. When Ernaux is at the height of her powers as she is with this book, she can't be beat.
A Childhood by Harry Crews: The autobiography starts years before the author is born when his father who he never met living loses a testicle to venereal disease. I stole so much from this book that the copy on my bookshelf is just the cover and the endpapers.
Thanks for reading! While you’re here, just a reminder that if you’ve been inspired to have a go at writing creative non-fiction for yourself, we’re running our first non-fiction course next month here in Norwich, aimed at beginners. You can find out more and book on to the course here: