Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Kelly Garriott Waite on April 14, 2011 at 1:47pm

Just ran through the writing books on my shelf: I love Essays of E.B. White and Lopate's The Art of the Personal Essay.  For more of an instructional type book, I often turn to Writing Creative Nonfiction, Edited by Forche adn Gerard.  I love Brenda MIller's essay A Braided Heart: Shaping the Lyric Essay.  Also have been turning more and more to The Writer's Portable Mentor by Long, which goes across all genres. 

Permalink Reply by Penny J. Leisch on May 31, 2012 at 2:40pm

Thank you all for the resources. Brenda Miller co-wrote a new book that just came out in 2012. The reviews are excellent, but I couldn't find the one you mentioned--at least not on Amazon.

Permalink Reply by Julija Sukys on May 6, 2011 at 10:39am

I second Kelly's suggestion of Phillip Lopate's The Art of the Personal Essay. If you don't own it, buy it!

Permalink Reply by Lauren Michelle on July 25, 2011 at 4:15pm

There's a really good book by Dinty Moore published by Writer's Digest - you can find the book in their online store, and in Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million - called Crafting the Personal Essay, if you're into writing from that angle. I've read the first few chapters, and it's been really helpful so far. I've tracked my progress in essay writing by following the prompts and posting them on my blog under the label "crafting the personal essay" to keep with the book's purpose.

Permalink Reply by Rachel Maizes on December 5, 2011 at 7:47pm

I really enjoyed Dinty Moore's book as well.

Permalink Reply by Carol Apple on August 13, 2011 at 9:05am

I own Crafting the Personal Essay by Dinty Moore and find it one the best out there specifically on essay writing. I really did learn a lot from that book, and still refer to it.

Another good one is Tell It Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonfiction by Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola (Sep 16, 2004).

Permalink Reply by Marlene Samuels on September 7, 2011 at 4:37pm

I've participated in a number of essay workshops and the one book everyone seems to come back to is Philip Lopate's The Art of the Personal Essay. It's an excellent reference and in it, Lopate addresses each category of the genre. Another source, although more of a study guide but quite good is by Bryan Greethnam, How to Write Better Essays. More recently there have been some excellent on-line writing sites so you may want to "Google" the lyric essay.

Permalink Reply by Nichole L. Reber on November 1, 2011 at 4:23pm

The annual anthology of Best American Essays is also good for finding where they're going and what's being done in essaying. Another good book is Literary Journalism, edited by Norman Sims and Mark Kramer. Coincidentally I was just looking these up a couple days ago when writing about a debate between journalism and essays. It will run on Friday: http://www.architecturetravelwriter.com

Permalink Reply by Rachel Maizes on December 5, 2011 at 7:50pm

I just finished "Naked, Drunk and Writing," by Adair Lara. It's quite funny and has great advice on writing the personal essay.

Permalink Reply by Alexandra Balinda on January 26, 2012 at 7:42am

Thank you all for sharing these resources, I am ordering the Lopate and Minty books right now!

Permalink Reply by Allison Ellis on March 20, 2012 at 2:54pm

For those of you who are Avant Guild MediaBistro members, here's a great post from yesterday: The 7 Biggest Mistakes Personal Essay Writers Make: http://www.mediabistro.com/10000words/personal-essay-writing_b11690

At the end of the article there are links to personal essay markets. Super helpful!

Permalink Reply by Julie Farrar on April 17, 2012 at 11:09am

Looks like others beat me to the punch on Lopate and Moore.

@Allison, you mentioned Media Bistro.  Is it worth the amount it costs to join?  I'm just starting with the "trying to make money with writing" stage of my writing journey, as well as doing the literary essays that will just add "two free copies" to my bookshelves.  I've seen MB mentioned, but can't decide if it's worth it because I can't see what they offer unless I pay first.

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