How to Write a Personal Essay
Top tips from an essayist and writing professor
Here’s the quick and dirty version of what I teach my students in a semester. If you want me to teach you one-on-one, you can always hire me to be your #WritingBoss.
Keep a notebook. I have a little essay about this very thing to help you get started. Susan Orlean has a great one too.
Follow, support, and read other essayists. You can do that on Medium, and you can also buy (used or new) the work of essayists you love and admire. Being part of a community is such a huge and sometimes overlooked part of being a writer, and if we don’t support each other (in the form of buying each other’s books, ordering them for our local libraries, or tweeting about them), who will? I love The Best American Essays series because of its variety and increasing diversity of voices. A few favorite essayists of mine right now: Alex Difrancesco, Matt Longabucco, and Sejal Shah.
Make a writing group of trusted readers. Remember, you want kind and supportive feedback. You may think you want your writing group to tear you apart (we tell ourselves that we need this kind of brutality), but you don’t. You want people who can see what your work could become even if it isn’t there yet.
