This is an in-person workshop that takes place at Inprint House

The Art of the Personal Essay

When we write a personal essay, we establish a kind of friendship with the reader–an imaginary one, of course–which encourages us to open up our internal life, as we would to an intimate companion. The genre dares us to be candid, to think freely, to air our doubts and hunt down our hunches. We learn to follow the course of our internal debates on the page, to tell the story of our thoughts.

To understand the personal essay form, we’ll need to read and discuss at least one personal essay each week. Drawing from the work of both classic essayists such as George Orwell and Virginia Woolf, and contemporary essayists such as Meghan Daum and Thomas Beller, we’ll find ideas and inspiration and get a sense for the genre’s parameters. Especially in the early weeks, we’ll do in-class exercises. With the help of the workshop, we’ll use these to plot out the various directions in which these possible beginnings might take us. In later weeks, participants will present their essays-in-progress to the group. The instructor and class members will read them and offer helpful reaction and suggestions.