Confession is everywhere in our culture. It drives banal social media posts, sensational reality television shows, revolutionary social justice movements, and is prominent in literature. Confession has also been central to feminist movements throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Nevertheless, self-disclosure comes laden with an array of dangers, particularly for women: that they will be disbelieved or retraumatized, seen as narcissistic and/or unliterary, or professionally stereotyped and blocked from opportunities. In this talk, Dr. Bloom will discuss how writers negotiate the potentialities and pitfalls of confession, focusing specifically on Canadian women including Nelly Arcan, Sheila Heti, Sina Queyras and Tanya Tagaq, whose experiments in life writing are fueling literary innovation in Canada and beyond. Dr. Bloom will also show how “CanLit” itself has become confessional, as personal disclosure increasingly shapes its texts, institutions, and discourse.