Personal Essay is an Intensive, meaning it happens in a short time span (1 day in NYC, or 2 days on Zoom). It’s open to writers of any level. Farther down, you can view a syllabus for this course.
What do you think about X or Y or Z? And how have your life experiences informed your views on these topics? That’s the essence of a personal essay: viewpoints filtered through the lens of your personal experience. Any topic goes, from the ridiculous to the sublime.
Unlike the stiff essays you may have written in school, these should feel personal, imbued with your unique voice and observations. Here you’ll learn techniques for crafting personal essays and how to market your work.
Whether you seek to write about things major or minor, stimulating or tickling, we’ll show you how to write personal essays that do you proud.
Notes:
A personal essay is similar to a memoir; both incorporate elements from the writer’s life. But a personal essay focuses more on the viewpoint, and a memoir focuses more on the story. Gotham also offers courses on Memoir Writing and an Intensive on Personal Essay Writing.
This course gives an overview of the basics of writing personal essays. Course components:
- Brief lectures
- Writing exercises
Topics:
- What is a Personal Essay?
- Finding Topics
- Merging the Personal and Universal
- Structure
- Voice
- Getting Published
About
- Zoom classes happen in real time.
- The Zoom classes unite students from all over the world at Gotham—New York City’s most well-established writing school.
- The Zoom classes happen on videoconference, in “real time.” Very much like an in-person class except everyone is on a computer or device in their own space. The Zoom software is free and simple to use.
- You can take a Zoom writing class from anywhere, as long as you have an internet connection. The majority of our Zoom students are located in the U.S. but we also draw students from practically every country in the world.
- Tech support will be available. Out of respect for everyone’s privacy, the Zoom sessions are not recorded.
