Why I Find the Personal Essay So Compelling
Guest blogger: nationally acclaimed writing teacher, Sheila Bender, author of Writing and Publishing Personal Essays
I have been a fan of writing the personal essay since 1981 when I finished graduate school in creative writing (poetry) and went to work for community colleges teaching freshman composition. Most of the students were terrified of having to take the writing requirement to gain admittance into advanced classes, but all had stories to tell—some came from immigrant backgrounds, some from poverty, and many from families where illnesses curtailed education and economic advancement. They were working—some all night before coming to school in the morning. Some were divorced and raising children; some had children a half a country away. Some had been raised by grandparents or served in the Gulf War; one suffered from diabetes and another was a dwarf. They relaxed when they realized two things: In my class, personal experience counted and I had devised a way for everyone to use patterns of thinking to facilitate not only the clear telling of their stories but the coming to insight and discovery. In other words, using the structure of the personal essay, anyone could find meaning in their experience and communicate it to others. Robert Frost's way of saying it was, "No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader." And William Wordsworth, speaking of poetry, said it another way: one person's insides were speaker to another's insides.
That is the reason writing personal essays is so compelling and why they are, when they are well done, so compelling to read. The writer learns from their experience by creating that experience on the page so others live it, too, through their senses. Since we all are alike in our feelings, once we sense the situation, we experience similar emotions and once we do that, we feel intimate and connected to the person who wrote the experience down.
My book, Writing and Publishing Personal Essays from Silver Threads, is written directly from my experience, first helping class upon class accomplish the writing of successful personal essays and then taking my method to those outside of school who want to write from life experience. The book poses and pairs "Write Questions" with particular patterns of thinking. For instance, all of us can remember a time we lost someone, something, or some opportunity that was important to us. Asking ourselves when such a thing happened and pairing our answer with the narration (telling a story through time) pattern, we will write moving essays--telling the story of losing a job might show that the real story is in receiving a new opportunity that one might not have gotten otherwise or the story of almost drowning in a current until a stranger suddenly appeared from nowhere and offered rescue might become in its telling the story of a renewed sense of destiny.
I truly believe that anyone who has the desire to write personal experience can find a way to successfully put that experience on the page. People who use my book tell me it helps them do just that. I also now publish Writing It Real at and offer in-depth articles in which I talk about ways to find topics, to find the emotional occasion of the writing, and to develop one's ear to realize final drafts that make discovery and move readers. The magazine is devoted to helping its readers gather the kind of information and experience available at writer's conferences. This fall, I launched LifeJournal for Writers with Chronicles Software--I wrote the prompts and tips and organized the kinds of journals and notebooks a writer likes to keep for this Windows tool; many early purchasers say they are more prolific because the tool makes going to the computer and starting and then staying organized easier.
I am devoted to the personal essay and to journaling to create a gold mine of material because I love learning about peoples' experience and delving more deeply into my own. I have also learned that writing personal essays can lead to writing memoir--either by linking the essays or by merging and expanding them. If you want some examples, check out Rebecca McClanahan's Riddle Song and Brenda Miller's Season of the Body. Of course, you might like to read collections of essays by Philip Lopate, Garrison Keiller and Andre Cordescu. There are so many wonderful collections out there: In Short and In Brief co-edited by Judith Kitchen are too anthologies that include loads of lovely essays and there is also the annual Best American Essays. Read lots of essays; then reread your favorites, and then sit down and write from your own experience. Next, find a way to publish what you've written--by reading it to others in a writing group, sending it to a newspaper or newsletter or magazine or as a letter to those you care about. We need to be hearing from one another, we really do. There really is nothing else like it.
I have been a fan of writing the personal essay since 1981 when I finished graduate school in creative writing (poetry) and went to work for community colleges teaching freshman composition. Most of the students were terrified of having to take the writing requirement to gain admittance into advanced classes, but all had stories to tell—some came from immigrant backgrounds, some from poverty, and many from families where illnesses curtailed education and economic advancement. They were working—some all night before coming to school in the morning. Some were divorced and raising children; some had children a half a country away. Some had been raised by grandparents or served in the Gulf War; one suffered from diabetes and another was a dwarf. They relaxed when they realized two things: In my class, personal experience counted and I had devised a way for everyone to use patterns of thinking to facilitate not only the clear telling of their stories but the coming to insight and discovery. In other words, using the structure of the personal essay, anyone could find meaning in their experience and communicate it to others. Robert Frost's way of saying it was, "No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader." And William Wordsworth, speaking of poetry, said it another way: one person's insides were speaker to another's insides.
That is the reason writing personal essays is so compelling and why they are, when they are well done, so compelling to read. The writer learns from their experience by creating that experience on the page so others live it, too, through their senses. Since we all are alike in our feelings, once we sense the situation, we experience similar emotions and once we do that, we feel intimate and connected to the person who wrote the experience down.
My book, Writing and Publishing Personal Essays from Silver Threads, is written directly from my experience, first helping class upon class accomplish the writing of successful personal essays and then taking my method to those outside of school who want to write from life experience. The book poses and pairs "Write Questions" with particular patterns of thinking. For instance, all of us can remember a time we lost someone, something, or some opportunity that was important to us. Asking ourselves when such a thing happened and pairing our answer with the narration (telling a story through time) pattern, we will write moving essays--telling the story of losing a job might show that the real story is in receiving a new opportunity that one might not have gotten otherwise or the story of almost drowning in a current until a stranger suddenly appeared from nowhere and offered rescue might become in its telling the story of a renewed sense of destiny.
I truly believe that anyone who has the desire to write personal experience can find a way to successfully put that experience on the page. People who use my book tell me it helps them do just that. I also now publish Writing It Real at and offer in-depth articles in which I talk about ways to find topics, to find the emotional occasion of the writing, and to develop one's ear to realize final drafts that make discovery and move readers. The magazine is devoted to helping its readers gather the kind of information and experience available at writer's conferences. This fall, I launched LifeJournal for Writers with Chronicles Software--I wrote the prompts and tips and organized the kinds of journals and notebooks a writer likes to keep for this Windows tool; many early purchasers say they are more prolific because the tool makes going to the computer and starting and then staying organized easier.
I am devoted to the personal essay and to journaling to create a gold mine of material because I love learning about peoples' experience and delving more deeply into my own. I have also learned that writing personal essays can lead to writing memoir--either by linking the essays or by merging and expanding them. If you want some examples, check out Rebecca McClanahan's Riddle Song and Brenda Miller's Season of the Body. Of course, you might like to read collections of essays by Philip Lopate, Garrison Keiller and Andre Cordescu. There are so many wonderful collections out there: In Short and In Brief co-edited by Judith Kitchen are too anthologies that include loads of lovely essays and there is also the annual Best American Essays. Read lots of essays; then reread your favorites, and then sit down and write from your own experience. Next, find a way to publish what you've written--by reading it to others in a writing group, sending it to a newspaper or newsletter or magazine or as a letter to those you care about. We need to be hearing from one another, we really do. There really is nothing else like it.
