The first-person essays boom: top editors on why confessional writing matters

A Slate piece on first-person writing has prompted debate in the digital media community. We asked editors at BuzzFeed, Jezebel and other leading sites to weigh in on the importance of such pieces – and why there is a gender divideOn Monday, Laura Bennett’s Slate piece on the boom of first-person essay writing sparked a fierce online debate between editors and writers: how can one best work between the vulnerability of a writer and the traffic goal of an editor? What’s the line between publishing someone’s personal experience and exploitation?In response to Bennett’s piece, we asked senior editors at several publications known for publishing first-person stories about what they value in them, how they look after their writers, and why it is that so many confessional stories seem to be written by women, and not men.This route to publication and a book/movie deal simply is not open for non-white womenAnd now Pollitt’s up at bat. Her three previous essay collections gathered brilliant commentary on welfare, abortion, surrogate motherhood, Iraq, gay marriage and health care, mostly from the pages of The Nation. But with “Learning to Drive,” she gets personal, and shameless. She has decided to wave her dirty laundry (among which she found unidentified striped panties) and confesses to “Webstalking” her longtime, live-in, womanizing former boyfriend. (Take that, you rat!) It’s hard to tell if she’s coming into her own, trying to sell more books or has lost it entirely. Or... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2015-09-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
News tagged with: #gay marriage #health care #dirty laundry #ve heard

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For Aleksandar Hemon, Writing is a Search for a Form That Doesn’t Yet Exist

Aleksandar Hemon is the author of The Lazarus Project, which was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and three books of short stories: The Question of Bruno; Nowhere Man, which was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award;... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2023-01-24 09:53:24 UTC ]
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Christine Ma-Kellams Wants to Survive What Happens in Your Writing

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[ Electric Literature | 2023-01-20 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Digital Book World 2023: The Future of AI Writing and Audio

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-01-17 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Digital Book World 2023: The Future of AI Writing and Audio

Jack Shoemaker, Founding Editor of Counterpoint Press, Retires

During a career that began in 1965 as a California bookseller, Shoemaker founded North Point Press and Counterpoint Press, publishing such authors as Wendell Berry, Gary Snyder, MFK Fisher, Guy Davenport, James Salter, Barry Lopez, Anne Lamott, Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, Robert Hass, and Banana... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-01-14 05:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Millions | 2023-01-11 11:00:04 UTC ]
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In his own write: Prince Harry’s ghostwriter is so famous that George Clooney made a film of his life

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[ The Guardian | 2023-01-07 18:42:05 UTC ]
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Why Travel Writing is a Form of Memoir and How Covid Has Changed How We See the World

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[ Literrary Hub | 2023-01-06 09:52:43 UTC ]
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The Australian: Michelle Gunn becomes Murdoch-owned newspaper’s first female editor-in-chief

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[ The Guardian | 2023-01-06 01:24:53 UTC ]
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[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-01-03 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Top-selling Canadian cookbook author Jean Paré dies in Edmonton at age 95

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[ CBC | 2022-12-27 15:54:46 UTC ]
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[ Literrary Hub | 2022-12-22 09:53:38 UTC ]
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[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-12-21 05:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-12-21 05:00:00 UTC ]
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[ PC World | 2022-12-19 08:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-12-14 05:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-12-14 05:00:00 UTC ]
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