Personal Writing

In this post, we look at what a personal reportage essay is, including what makes it different from other types of essays and when writers may prefer to use this style.

For this week's market spotlight, we look at Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction, an online publication released three times per year and focused on extremely brief nonfiction essays.

In this post, we look at what a braided essay is, including what makes it different from other types of essays and when writers may prefer to use this style.

Author and podcast host Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts discusses how exploring personal joy led her to write her new essay collection, Black Joy.

Recently, a young writer reached out to Senior Editor Robert Lee Brewer about how to develop his natural writing voice. Here's his answer.

In this post, we look at what a hermit crab essay is, including what makes it different from other types of essays and when writers may prefer to use this style.

In this post, we look at what a graphic essay is, including what makes it different from other types of essays and when writers may prefer to use this style.

When writing real-life events, including interviews and first-hand accounts can enhance the writing. Here, author and essayist Hasanthika Sirisena shares two tups for adding reportage and cultural criticism into personal essays and memoirs.

In this post, we look at what a fragmented essay is, including what makes it different from other types of essays and when writers may prefer to use this style.

Author and essayist Hasanthika Sirisena discusses the power of the essay with her new collection, Dark Tourist.

Every memoir requires searching for the truth of the story. Lilly Dancyger, author of the memoir Negative Space, shows how this hunt can serve as the structure of the narrative.

A spotty memory made writing her memoir a 10-year process, and in the end, Laura Davis' remembrance is part literary and part reality. Here, the nonfiction writer describes how she wrote her memoir and lost her memories.

Where fiction writing is about concealing emotional truth for interpretation, memoir is about exposing it for what it is. Writer Jenna Blum discusses the differences she experienced in writing a memoir vs. a novel.

Here are a few tips for writing personal essays from the Publishing Insights column of the March/April 2021 issue of Writer's Digest.

Author and writing instructor Laura Davis discusses the process of starting, stopping, and starting again with her new memoir, The Burning Light of Two Stars.

The Writer's Digest team has witnessed many writing mistakes over the years, so we started this series to help identify them for other writers (along with correction strategies). This week's writing mistake is undermining your expertise in self-help writing.

Bobby and Cheryl Love discusses the process of writing coauthoring their memoir, The Redemption Of Bobby Love: A Story of Faith, Family, and Justice.

Reflective writing—or journaling—is a helpful practice in helping understand ourselves, and by extensions, the stories we intend to write. Author Jeanne Baker Guy offers 25 ways reflective writing can help you grow as a writer (and as a person).