Search Results for: personal essay

What is personal essay? Susan Bono, Guest Blogger

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When you’re writing personal essay or memoir, it’s helpful to keep these words by Vivian Gornick in mind: “Good writing has two characteristics. It’s alive on the page and the reader is persuaded that the writer is on a voyage of discovery.” (Vivian Gornick, The Situation and the Story) Remember, too, that readers want to feel as if they know WHY you are telling your story. It’s not enough for the incidents you’re describing to be exciting or scary or hilarious. Your readers want to know how those events changed you. At the heart of every personal essay is this basic purpose: “I want to tell you how ______ changed my life.” When you attempt to communicate that intention, you are helping your essay become a “quest for understanding and information.” (Lee Guttkind, founding editor of Creative Nonfiction) Once you understand that personal essay is what Tristine Rainer calls a…

Illuminating The Essay

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Guest Blogger Arletta Dawdy’s reflections on Susan Bono’s talk, “Illuminating The Essay.” Remember the bogs of Ireland or those on the moors of England in old romance novels? The one where the heroine comes to the lonesome manor to be a governess, nurse, or maid only to fall for the moody master, his neighbor or maybe the groundsman. She’s lost in the mire of boggish emotions until HE comes to her rescue. Well, I don’t see HIM rescuing this writer from her blogger’s mind-bog. If you noticed, I’ve been absent for, low, these many months and then I thought there might be hope showing on my horizon. Marlene Cullen, producer of Writers Forum, invited local heroine/publisher//teacher Susan Bono to inspire an October gathering by “Illuminating The Essay.” Susan has published personal narratives in her famed  journal, Tiny Lights, for nearly twenty years. She is an expert in the form and…

Short essays can be a goldmine.

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Today’s guest blog post is excerpted from Anne R. Allen’s Blog… with Ruth Harris. Writing about writing. Mostly.  Book length memoir is a hard sell, but short essays can be a goldmine. Memoir is the most popular genre at any writers’ conference. Unfortunately, it’s the hardest to write well—and the least likely to be successful if you’re an unknown newbie writer. That’s because book-length memoir isn’t likely to become a bestseller unless people already know who you are. So how do you get people to know you? You could become a reality TV star, run for political office, or be related to somebody who marries into the British royal family of course, but not everybody has that option. You can also work to get yourself known through social media, which I recommend for all memoirists. Start a blog, podcast, or vlog on the subject or setting of your memoir and…

“The key to a good essay is conflict, and . . . Victoria Zackheim

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“The key to a good essay is conflict, and the story’s (and character’s) arc. People have to change during the story, whether fiction or non-fiction. — Victoria Zackheim, interviewed by Chris Jane in JaneFriedman.com. Victoria Zackheim is the author of the novel The Bone Weaver and editor of six anthologies: He Said What? Women Write About Moments When Everything Changed The Other Woman Twenty-one Wives, Lovers, and Others Talk Openly About Sex, Deception, Love, and Betrayal For Keeps: Women Tell the Truth About Their Bodies, Growing Older, and Acceptance The Face in the Mirror Writers Reflect on Their Dreams of Youth and the Reality of Age Exit Laughing: How Humor Takes the Sting Out of Death and the upcoming FAITH: Essays from Believers, Agnostics, and Atheists (Feb. 2015). Victoria’s play, The Other Woman, based on her first anthology, will be featured in OneNight/OnePlay, and her play Entangled, an adaptation of the memoir Entangled:…

What is the point of your essay?

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“Personal essays represent what you think, what you feel . . . your effort to communicate those thoughts and feelings to others . . .  What is the point of your essay? Don’t belabor the point too much; let the point grow out of the experience of the essay. It might be true, in fact, that you didn’t even have a point to make when you started writing your essay. Go ahead and write it and see if a point develops.” — Essay.Grammar.com  

Are there rules for essay writing?

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Pat Olsen has written an excellent article about writing personal essay in the December 2013 issue of The Writer magazine. Highlights: “. . . when I am so obsessed about an idea that I can’t wait to put pen to paper, the essay almost writes itself. That’s not so say I don’t struggle over every word, or that I’m done after the first draft . . . Some of the best advice I’ve received is that it’s not only what you choose to include in an essay that’s important, but it’s also what you choose to omit.”  She gives an example and then goes on to ask: “Are there actual rules for essay writing? If so, not all writers agree on them.” After consulting essayists, here’s what she discovered:  Kate Walter:  “‘An essay should have a universal theme . . . No matter how unusual a story may seem,’ she…

Simple Structure for Building the Essay by Susan Bono, Guest Blogger

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Continuing with Guest Blogger, Susan Bono, here are building blocks for writing personal essay, or memoir. Character: you Problem: give yourself a problem Struggle: problem creates conflict Epiphany: after struggle, a flood of new understanding Resolution: what you do differently as a result Many essays begin with a clear, straightforward statement of intent. All essays have an implied thesis and should have a clear angle —a particular way of approaching and narrowing the subject matter.  For example, notice how the following statements could shape your narrative from the start. I want to tell you how ______________changed my life. (Universal statement: this is the basic scaffolding for every personal essay) I learned about ________from ___________. I thought I would never learn to love ____________. We’ll continue this exploration of personal essay and memoir over the next few days with intriguing writing prompts suggested by Susan Bono.

Something happened, and you weren’t the same . . . Prompt #780

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Use a pivotal event as a way into writing a personal essay, or a slice of your life . . .  a memoir, or creative non-fiction. A pivotal event is something happened and you weren’t the same after. Obvious pivotal events are graduating from school, first job, getting married, having a baby, retiring. There are more subtle events that, at the time, you didn’t know would be a pivotal event. Those are the events that could result in a riveting essay, or give you closure. Prompt 1 Make a list of things, events, people that you carry in your mind. These are events that you can’t forget. People who haunt you. Memories that you can’t seem to let go. These are things you think about over and over, events that are on repeat in your brain. Things that happened that you can’t stop thinking about, maybe things you lose sleep…

A New Beginning

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Guest Blogger Tamara Belinfanti writes about a new beginning. A few years ago, I found myself called to write exuberant, colorful stories with riotous characters that defied rational thinking and did not fit the mold of legal academia, which was my background. At first, like so many, I ignored the inner whisper to explore new territory. But the thing about callings is that they get louder when you get really still or something shakes your world. For me, the latter forced the former: my closest mentor in the law field passed suddenly, and alongside intense grief, a new beginning emerged. In academia, I had a built-in community of mentors and colleagues, plus the academic publishing path was fairly straightforward. My tenure process was not a walk in the park, but overall it was relatively hitch-free and went according to plan. Creative writing was a whole new terrain. I had to…

Good Housekeeping wants your story

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From The Good Houeskeeping Magazine Website: We’re always on the lookout for great writers with great ideas, in an effort to deliver a unique mix of voices and perspectives to our readers. When it comes to freelance pitches, we’re interested in long-form narratives, deeply reported service pieces and personal essays that offer a compelling point of view, a personal story that will help improve readers’ lives. Email pitches to: ghdigital – at – hearst.com. Include: Email subject line: “Story Pitch” and a short summation of your topic. Please include your name, contact info, a brief description of your experience as a writer and links to your past work. Headline: Include a working headline for your story. Brief description/outline: We find that the best pitches are timely, well written, appropriately researched and have a strong working outline. We accept all pitches for Good Housekeeping on a rolling basis. Please note that due to the volume of emails…