If I Can Be Honest: Selected Prose from the Four Years of Autofocus Lit (2020-2024)

Before there was Autofocus Books, there was Autofocus Lit, an online journal dedicated to artful autobiographical writing in its various genres and forms. The online journal began in October 2020 and published 318 original pieces from established and emerging writers before it closed in October 2024 to continue building the press that grew out of it. This anthology collects over forty works of short-form prose (400 - 3,000 words), selected by the journal’s founder and editor-in-chief, Michael Wheaton. These works are arranged into the seven big thematic containers that developed over the publication’s four years: friends, family, heartbreak, the body, violence, death, and life. If I Can Be Honest provides an instructive, engrossing, and polyvocal survey of artful autobiographical prose two decades into 21st century literature.

Michael Wheaton is the author of the essay Home Movies (BUNNY, 2024). His writing has appeared in Essay Daily, DIAGRAM, Burrow Press Review, HAD, Rejection Letters, and elsewhere. He publishes Autofocus Books and produces The Lives of Writers podcast.