Latest updates for Personal Essays

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Recent items include:

  • But What Do They Want?!? Write Publishable Essays by Analyzing Published Essays
  • The Long and Happy Life of an Unpublished Essay
  • The Long Essay—How It Can Do the Heavy-Lifting and Entertain

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brevity.wordpress.com /1 month ago

But What Do They Want?!? Write Publishable Essays by Analyzing Published Essays

By Allison K Williams A writer friend had an essay rejected fourteen times. It dealt beautifully with the journey of her abusive father’s dementia, and recognizing that her now-car...

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brevity.wordpress.com /1 week ago

The Long and Happy Life of an Unpublished Essay

An essay can have benefits beyond those that come from publication By Elizabeth Roper Marcus Shortly after taking up writing in my late 40s, I finished a memoir piece I was proud o...

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brevity.wordpress.com /1 month ago

The Long Essay—How It Can Do the Heavy-Lifting and Entertain

By Amy Monticello If there’s a “sweet spot” for an essay’s word count—say, 2,000-4,500 words, as many journals list in their submission guidelines—it has mostly eluded me. Maybe it...

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isthmus.com /3 weeks ago

Stories that matter

“For me, the hope was to make a human connection, help the student think creatively, and teach skills that would help not just the current paper, but their future writing as well.”

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brevity.wordpress.com /1 month ago

Wish List Essays: A Brevity Blog Round Up

By Andrea A. Firth Dear Writers: In February, we published our annual Editors’ Wish List of topics that we are interested to see written about on The Brevity Blog—and we appreciate...

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insidehighered.com /1 month ago

Personal Aphorisms

Personal Aphorisms Sara Brady Fri, 07/31/2026 - 03:00 AM When in doubt … Byline(s) Matt Reed

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newyorker.com /1 month ago

My Birthright

When you immigrate, certain bands of cultural experience go dark. Is that why I can’t stop writing about where I’m from?

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brevity.wordpress.com /3 weeks ago

Embrace the Ugly Through the Concrete Details

By Beth Mead The first time it felt physically painful for me to write an essay was when the piece was mostly done, but I knew I had to add a paragraph describing the guy who hurt...

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jewishjournal.com /1 week ago

Why I Write

The column went from being about a neighborhood to being all over the map. Now, I can’t attend any event, watch any movie, read any essay, discover any story, hear any conversation...

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youthkiawaaz.com /3 days ago

The Teachers Who Became a Part of Who I Am

# The Teachers Who Became a Part of Who I AmSome places become a part of our memories, while some become a part of who we are. For me, **Gargi College was the latter.**When I joine...

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youthkiawaaz.com /1 month ago

Teenage Delusions

#LoveWithoutLabelsAs a fourteen-year-old and obsessed with romance books I used to think finding love was about finding “the one”, who would do grand gestures just so I would hear...

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brevity.wordpress.com /1 week ago

Biography, Memoir, Memorial: Writing My Father and Myself

By Sarah Curtis In the spring of last year, I mailed my father a copy of my manuscript before my publisher sent it to press. Since it was about him, I thought he deserved the final...

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brevity.wordpress.com /1 week ago

The Object as Witness: How Ordinary Things Became My Memoir

The object is never the subject. The object is the lens. By Marvin Garbeh Davis, Sr. I did not set out to write a memoir. I set out to write about my stomach. Specifically, the com...

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brevity.wordpress.com /1 week ago

Fun, or Something Like It: Caring Gently About Our Memoirs

by Danya Kaufmann I spent a couple weeks in Dharamshala one summer, up in the lush green mountains of Northern India. The village was enveloped by a magical mist, and I was in heav...

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brevity.wordpress.com /3 weeks ago

What the ICE Invasion of Minnesota Taught Me About Writing

And why I’m still processing it six months later By Sandra Eliason “Attention without feeling is only a report.” ~ Mary Oliver My daughter’s Three Kings’ Day party, held each year...

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atwoodmagazine.com /3 weeks ago

“I Spent My Life Feeling ‘A Little Off’”: An Essay by Kind Villain’s EV Frederick

EV Frederick of Tampa pop-rock project Kind Villain reflects on how years of feeling “a little off” became the foundation for his music and identity in a personal essay about findi...

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brevity.wordpress.com /1 month ago

I’m Ready for My Close-Up: Using the metaphor of cinema to focus our writing lenses

By Ethan Gilsdorf I spent the formative years of my childhood with a Super 8 movie camera and, later in high school, in the clunky medium of  ¾ inch video, creating DIY claymation...

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nytimes.com /5 days ago

Tiny Memoir Contest for Students: Write a 100-Word Personal Narrative

We invite teenagers to tell a story about a meaningful life experience in just 100 words. Contest dates: Sept. 16-Oct. 28, 2026.

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brevity.wordpress.com /4 weeks ago

How Writing Fiction Unlocked My Nonfiction Writing

By Elissa Jacobs My memoir was written at sloth-speed. More than a decade from the first words on the page to a full first draft; more than five years beginning from when I “got se...

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medium.com /5 days ago

The Boy Who Loved Stories Grew Into A Man Who Loved Cheap Alcohol

A mother, a son, and the brutal telling that ended usContinue reading on The Narrative Arc »

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atwoodmagazine.com /5 days ago

“Music Heals”: An Essay by Matthew Baione

Attorney, advocate, and Keep Good Company Records co-founder Matthew Baione reflects on music, memory, and the stories behind three digits in “Music Heals,” a moving essay marking...

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nytimes.com /1 month ago

Tiny Love Stories: ‘My Strange Shame’

Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.

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feminisminindia.com /1 week ago

The Weight They Carried: Gender, Memory, And Partition In My Punjabi Family

This essay explores the impact of Partition on families, particularly women, and how the trauma they experienced was often hidden beneath a veil of silence and 'honour', and eventu...

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brevity.wordpress.com /1 month ago

When Your Memoir Becomes Something More

By Dawn M. Smith When I started writing my memoir about working at The Marine Mammal Center in Northern California in the ‘80s and ‘90s, my goal was to have people vicariously expe...

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Sources covering Personal Essays

jewishjournal.com

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insidehighered.com

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atwoodmagazine.com

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brevity.wordpress.com

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feminisminindia.com

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isthmus.com

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