Personal Essay

Everyone has a story, and helping people tell their stories has been Nancy Slonim Aronie’s life mission. Building on her acclaimed Memoir as Medicine, this new guide tackles the short personal essay. With warmth and humor, Nancy provides prompts, inspiration, and hard-won wisdom to empower you to write an unforgettable narrative. You’ll learn to begin with an irresistible hook (“kill ’em with the first line”) and employ compelling direct quotes, drama, vulnerability, universal themes, and self-reflection to get readers into your corner.

Albert Camus (1913-1960) is unsurpassed among writers for a body of work that animates the wonder and absurdity of existence. Personal Writings brings together, for the first time, thematically-linked essays from across Camus's writing career that reflect the scope and depth of his interior life. Grappling with an indifferent mother and an impoverished childhood in Algeria, an ever-present sense of exile, and an ongoing search for equilibrium, Camus's personal essays shed new light on the emotional and experiential foundations of his philosophical thought....

Letting go is not a process that comes naturally to us. In a world that teaches us to cling to what we love at all costs, there is an undeniable art to moving on - and it's one that we are constantly relearning. In this series of honest and poignant essays, Heidi Priebe explores the harsh reality of what it means to let go of the people and situations we love most - often before we are ready to - and how to embrace what comes next.

This collection of narrative essays by sex workers presents a crystal-clear rejoinder: There's never been a better time to fight for justice. Responding to the resurgence of the #MeToo movement in 2017, sex workers from across the industry - hookers and prostitutes, strippers and dancers, porn stars, cam models, Dommes and subs alike - complicate narratives of sexual harassment and violence, and expand conversations often limited to normative workplaces.

Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask—or not—was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As Happy-Go-Lucky opens, he is learning to shoot guns with his sister, visiting muddy flea markets in Serbia, buying gummy worms to feed to ants, and telling his nonagenarian father wheelchair jokes. But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he’s stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most.

We often struggle to let some people go, especially when they made that decision. We question the universe, we question ourselves, and we question everyone around us but we never truly get our answers. Letting someone go takes time, patience, and commitment to actively stop ourselves from relapsing and thinking about that person again. The Art of Letting Go helps you understand why, how, and when you should let someone go so you can move on and never look back.

Melissa Broder always struggled with anxiety. In the fall of 2012, she went through a harrowing cycle of panic attacks and dread that wouldn't abate for months. So she began @sosadtoday, an anonymous Twitter feed that allowed her to express her darkest feelings and that quickly gained a dedicated following. In So Sad Today, Broder delves deeper into the existential themes she explores on Twitter.

The author of Bel Canto, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Orange Prize, and long-running New York Times best seller, turns to nonfiction in a moving chronicle of her decades-long friendship with the critically acclaimed and recently deceased author, Lucy Grealy.

“So, there I was; doing about 75 down the highway, boxes piled to the roof of my car, not entirely sure if this was the correct direction for my life, but with Jesús riding shotgun, well, nothing could stop me now.” How do you navigate the twists and turns of life? How do you approach your faith, your goals, your happiness, or even your failures? When you hit rock bottom, what keeps you going? What anchors you amid the chaos? In A Stoic Approach to Christianity and Other Essays, Donatello Mojica tackles these profound questions and many others. He delves into what it truly means to ...

Jimmy Lee Hickam grew up along Red Dog Road, a dead-end strip of gravel and mud buried deep in the bowels of Appalachian Ohio. It is the poorest road, in the poorest county, in the poorest region of the state. To make things worse, the name Hickam is synonymous with trouble. Jimmy Lee hails from a heathen mix of thieves, moonshiners, drunkards, and general anti-socials that for decades have clung to both the hardscrabble hills and the iron bars of every jail cell in the region. This life, Jimmy Lee believes, is his destiny, someday working with his drunkard father at the sawmill, or sitting next to his arsonist brother in the penitentiary.

Self-Reliance is a life-changing experience - its message of nonconformity, self-expression, and personal independence can awaken you to a new, and better, way of living. Now, historian and New Thought scholar Mitch Horowitz has deftly and faithfully retained the most powerful ideas of Ralph Waldo Emerson's original classic, and reintroduced this work in this one-of-a-kind condensation. Listenable within the space of an average commute or lunch hour, the experience of Self-Reliance may represent a true turning point in your life.

Lydia Davis is a writer whose originality, influence, and wit are beyond compare. Jonathan Franzen has called her "a magician of self-consciousness," while Rick Moody hails her as "the best prose stylist in America." And for Claire Messud, "Davis's signal gift is to make us feel alive." Best known for her masterful short stories and translations, Davis's gifts extend equally to her nonfiction. In Essays One, Davis has, for the first time, gathered a selection of essays, commentaries, and lectures composed over the past five decades.

Time is short and college bound students need their applications to make an impact on the overworked admissions officers who guard the gates at prestigious universities. To succeed in this mission, they need a book that will get read! In The 1-Hour College Admissions Essay, screenwriter and Hollywood story consultant, Craig Machen, offers a simple set of story telling tools to give personal statements the emotional impact they need to stand out. These concepts are not complex, but without them it’s almost impossible to write anything moving or memorable. In this concise but all ...

Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights is a genre-defying collection of essays that record the small joys that occurred in one year, from birthday to birthday, and that we often overlook in our busy lives. His is a meditation on delight that takes a clear-eyed view of the complexities, even the terrors, in his life, including living in America as a Black man; the ecological and psychic violence of our consumer culture; the loss of those he loves.

Based on bestselling author Brad Meltzer’s viral commencement speech for his son’s graduating class at the University of Michigan, Make Magic is the little book of hope for anyone who has ever wished for more. More authenticity. More empathy. More gratitude. A more fulfilling life.

Alexander Chee, an essayist of “virtuosity and power” (Washington Post), selects twenty essays out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year.

In Grounded, we meet Doreen as she’s struggling with the realization that she’s pregnant, weighing her own dreams and professional ambitions against the life she imagines is necessary to nurture and raise children well. Doreen’s mother was a stay-at-home mom who did everything in her power to ensure her daughters had the same opportunities as the white kids in their New Jersey suburb. Years later, the influence of her mom still looming large as her own children grow up, Doreen begins to see her mother’s choices in a different light.

❓ What if pain was never the problem—but the path? 🌀 What if addictions weren’t only about weakness—but also about forgetting who you are? 🌪 What if chaos held the key to clarity and freedom? 🔥 And what if hell isn’t something to escape—but something you must pass through to evolve? In a world that medicates discomfort, sells noise, and rewards distraction—The Zen Meditations of an Addict Monk is a quiet rebellion. A book not meant to inspire you—but to awaken you. This is not a self-help book. Not a guide. Not a strategy. It is a mirror. A fire. A return. A ...

Finally, a genuine shortcut to writing great college application essays! In this easy-to-read and entertaining text, filled with valuable tips and techniques, the author guides you methodically through each step of his innovative and time-saving system. Daniel K. Berman is a Harvard graduate, former college teacher and PhD, with more than 30 years of admissions coaching experience. Dozens of five-star reviews on sites such as Yelp and Google testify to the success of his easy-to-understand, time-tested methodology. Fast-track your way to a compelling college application essay by quickly ...

For years, popular sports radio personality Stugotz has been telling fans that he keeps a “personal record book,” a kind of alternate sports universe in which Babe Ruth is not a great Yankee, Sean McVay has no rings, and Joe Namath is not in the Hall of Fame, to name just a few of his sacred proclamations.