Take Your Personal Essay From Promising to Publishable

If you love the personal essay, have been working on a piece and want to take it to the next level–and dream of seeing it in print or online–this hands-on master class with Self magazine editor Paula Derrow will help you get there.

Personal essays are everywhere from the Styles section of The New York Times to your favorite blog to the Op Ed pages of your hometown paper. But what does it take to write a compelling, focused, personal essay that editors will want to snap up? 

In the first session, you will bring your 800 to 1,200-word essays to class (essays are due to instructor a week before class so she can read them in advance). We will workshop each essay in either the first or the second 3-hour session, depending on the number of students in the class. Each student will get revise notes from the instructor and bring revisions to the second session where we will again, workshop as many essays as time permits. We will also, of course, discuss general principles of good personal essay writing, how to pitch, how a personal essay is different from a blog, and what editors are looking for. By the end of the class, you will have a revised essay and a good sense of what you need to do next–either more revising, or where to pitch.

Note: Class members are required to email their essays of 800 to 1,200 words to Paula a week before class. Those essays will be workshopped with Paula and classmates.