In Media Res: What is Personal Essay?

 

      Choosing a genre is often one of the largest decisions an author will make. An author has to have an idea of what they want to write when they sit down, or the blank page will never let them free. Some authors are poets. Some write beautiful fiction stories, of dragons and elves. And some decide to tell true stories.

 

      Personal essay in creative nonfiction is a close cousin to memoir in that both involve the anecdotal sharing of personal experiences. One difference lies in the goal of the pieces. While memoir focuses on telling a longer story based around a central theme, personal essay is shorter and more focused on a single event in the narrator’s life. The personal essay will follow that singular event, picking it apart in detail in order to reach the central theme of the piece. By contrast, memoir will flow through a variety of themes and stories with the main focus being the entirety of an author’s life.

 

      When you sit down to write personal essay, you sit down to tell the story of the human condition. You decide that your experiences are important and relatable and worth being told. Mary Karr, who has written novels such as The Art of Memoir, calls the writer of personal essay “somebody who scratches and picks and worries the bone of things over and over and over.” You return to the same places, the same moments over and over, poking and prodding at the experience and hoping a shard will come loose and lead you, let you push off into new ground.

 

      As author Jo Ann Beard once said in an interview, “I write in order to make art, not to pursue or banish personal demons.” You’ve made art. You’ve written your personal essay, you’ve made something you want to share, and now you want to know how to do just that. You probably feel silly, just like I did, just like I do. You wrote to make art, like Beard herself said, not to publish.

It’s a more common problem than you might believe. With writing quickly becoming a common pastime due to the accessibility of writing programs like Write! or Microsoft Word, it is easier than ever to write and publish your stories. The struggle comes in getting them out into the world.  

 

Rising Action: Why Personal Essay?

 

      Personal essay can cover a wide variety of topics. Authors are only limited by the things they are willing to talk about. Laurie Uttich often likes to tell her classes that the things they once swore they would never speak about would be their first big piece. From recent events to mental illness, racial tension to Barbie collecting, nothing is off limits in personal essay. The lack of structuring in personal essay leaves the writer free to talk about anything and everything they feel is important, whether they want to talk about video games or sports or the way they feel about their parents.

 

      While that freedom can be terrifying to new writers, it can also offer a burst of exhilarating freedom to a writer tired of having others tell them exactly what to write. The desire to talk about personal experiences is very common in our day to day lives. It’s how people connect, through shared experiences. Personal essay offers the unique ability for people to share their experiences with people around the world.

 

      Personal essay is an easy genre to pick up but a tough genre to master. Most authors who are well known as author of personal essay talk about how they write to reach readers. They write from a place of honesty and desire to connect, and often they come to the table with little more than that. Sherman Alexie, “one of the major lyric voices of our time” according to The New York Times Book Review, was once asked in an interview about fans. He talked about people “zeroing themselves out” in front of him, making themselves nothing in order to make him into something that he’s not. He said “I want to tell them ‘I write this shit for you!’…I want to move rooms full of people. I want to move someone sitting alone under a reading lamp. I want to move someone sitting on a beach. I want to make them laugh and cry. I want them to see me and come running up to me and tell me how the books made them feel. I love that!”

 

Climax: Where to Look?

 

      So here we are. You’ve officially written your first piece of personal essay—though if you’re anything like me, it’s probably closer to your fiftieth. You’ve written and revised and probably scrapped it and wrote something totally different and regretted scrapping the first thing and went back and revised it a dozen times, but you’ve finally got something you’re happy with, or at least not miserable with. You have a piece you would be proud to let strangers read, a piece you feel encompasses a moment that needs to be shared. You’ve shared it with friends or family maybe, but now you want to share it with the world, right?

 

      That’s wonderful. There are a number of places and ways you can submit your work. Each type of publication has its own rules, its pros and cons. You should do your research and consider carefully before you commit to any one kind over the other, but here’s some information to help get you started.

 

Journal

 

      Journals can be either print or online. Journals are one of the most respected forms of essay publication, as they are usually aimed toward the market of people who consider themselves “literary” in some way. They are very similar to a magazine but are usually focused on a genre instead of a topic. Examples include River Teeth, The Sun, and Tin House.

 

Newspaper

 

      Newspapers will sometimes have sections for personal essay or other forms of creative nonfiction. This sort of publication is becoming increasingly more common as personal essay is becoming a more recognized genre. However, newspapers often have a very particular readership due to their falling popularity, especially among younger generations. Examples include The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune.

 

Online

           

      Online publications are the easiest to access but also the less-recognized form of publication. These places are easy to share and circulate through social media with a low barrier to entry. Also, a lack of finite paper space allows online publications their much larger abilities to host more up-and-coming authors. Examples include Huffington Post, Hippocampus Magazine, and FORTH.

 

Self-Publish

      

      Finally, you have the option to self-publish your work. This can be as an e-book or online on a blog. While this option is the easiest to start with, it can be difficult to gain any sort of dedicated readership posting on a blog alone. If you want to write for more than yourself, this may not be the way to go.

 

Falling Action: How to Submit?

 

      Once you have decided where you want to submit, you need to choose how you plan to submit. Different publications have different rules for submission, so be sure you’ve done your research. Many publications will not accept unsolicited manuscripts, so be sure your writing is wanted by whomever you are sending it to.

      

      Websites like Duotrope or Submittable are great resources for submitting personal essays online. They compile hundreds of journals and magazines actively accepting submissions and allow users to sort those results by criteria such as genre and likelihood of acceptance. These websites often have small membership fees but offer free trials for members so they can better understand how to use the site and discover whether the site is actually helpful for them. Duotrope allows members to track their submissions, see acceptance statistics for various journals, receive correspondence from editors, and track their acceptances or rejections in real time.

 

      In addition, books like Writer’s Market 2016 can be wonderful resources for an aspiring writer looking for places to submit their work. Around 1/3 of the book is dedicated solely to various places offering money in competitions for creative nonfiction. Many of these places follow the more traditional method of submission, wherein the author will mail the  company their manuscript or a short summary thereof along with a query letter and a self-addressed and stamped return envelope. Most, if not all journals will make their expectations for submissions very clear, so be sure to read closely.

 

      Many publishers will require that they have sole publishing rights to your piece. Be aware of this fact and consider whether you would be happy losing that piece to that publisher. If your answer is no, then that publisher is probably not the publisher for you.

 

Denouement: Where to Go from Here?

           

      Creative nonfiction exists to connect people. The human condition is complicated, scary, and impossible to comprehend in a hundred lifetimes, no matter how hard we try. Creative nonfiction authors do their best to understand what they can, though. They write and struggle against the mundane of existence, attempting to connect with people across thousands of miles, across space and across languages. Being a part of that is one of the best things I can ever imagine. I’ve invited you to join us. I hope you accept the offer.

 

Bibliography

 

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Bascom, Tim. "Picturing the Personal Essay: A Visual Guide." Creative Nonfiction. Creative Nonfiction, Summer 2013. Web. 11 Feb.       2016.

 

Beard, Jo Ann. "The Fourth State of Matter." The New Yorker. The New Yorker, 24 June 1996. Web. 11 Feb. 2016.

 

"The Believer - Sherman Alexie in Conversation with Neko Case." The Believer. N.p., 01 Feb. 2012. Web. 18 Feb. 2016.

 

Blakeley, Kiri. "So You Want To Write A Memoir." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 20 Apr. 2011. Web. 04 Feb. 2016.

 

Dreifus, Erika. "Friday Find: Where to Publish Flash Nonfiction & Micro-Essays." Erika Dreifus. Erika Dreifus, 27 Jan. 2012. Web. 04       Feb. 2016.

 

Drysdale, Chelsey. "Where to Publish Creative Nonfiction." Yes Girl. Blogspot, 13 Dec. 2014. Web. 04 Feb. 2016.

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Friedman, Jane. "Your Straight-Forward Guide to Publication | WritersDigest.com." Writer's Digest. Writer's Digest, 20 Sept. 2011.       Web. 04 Feb. 2016.

 

Gendler, Annette. "Best Literary Magazines for Nonfiction." Annette Gendler. Blogspot, 3 Jan. 2011. Web. 04 Feb. 2016.

 

Gutkind, Lee. "The Five 'R's of Creative Nonfiction." Creative Nonfiction. Creative Nonfiction, 1996. Web. 11 Feb. 2016.

 

"Mary Karr On Writing Memoirs: 'No Doubt I've Gotten A Million Things Wrong'" NPR. NPR, 15 Sept. 2015. Web. 18 Feb. 2016.

 

"'Memoir Project' Gives Tips For Telling Your Story." NPR. NPR, 13 July 2011. Web. 18 Feb. 2016.

 

Prudchenko, Kate. "What Is the Difference Between a Memoir & Personal Narrative?" Synonym. Demand Media, n.d. Web. 11 Feb.       2016.

 

Rao, Mythili. "Sherman Alexie: How Storytelling Can Create Social Change." Takeaway. WNYC Radio, 23 Sept. 2015. Web. 18 Feb.       2016.

 

Rowan, Lisa. "19 Websites and Magazines That Want to Publish Your Personal Essays." The Write Life. The Write Life, 06 Oct. 2014.       Web. 04 Feb. 2016.

 

Sistare, Heidi. "An Interview with Jo Ann Beard, by Heidi Sistare." Slice and Dice. Slice Literary, 4 Nov. 2014. Web. 18 Feb. 2016.

 

Strawser, Jessica. "The Market for Memoirs." Writer's Digest. Writer's Digest, 5 Oct. 2010. Web. 4 Feb. 2016.

 

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Uttich, Laurie Rachkus. "Do Not Read Out Loud." River Teeth River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative 14.1 (2012): 63-65.       Web. 11 Feb. 2016.

 

Yelin, Amy. "A Conversation with Jo Ann Beard." The Missouri Review 34.1 (2011): 134-45. Project Muse. Web. 18 Feb. 2016.