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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Hairy Bikers topple Fifty Shades from Amazon top spot

Orion title The Hairy Dieters: How to Love Food and Lose Weight has toppled Fifty Shades of Grey... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-08-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Fifty Shades toppled from Kindle top slot by 20p title

The Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy has been knocked from the top of the Amazon Kindle store by an e... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-08-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Twenty pence ebook cracks Kindle top three

An ebook being offered on the Kindle store for 20p has broken the top-three monopoly of the... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-08-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Fifty Shades of Grey tops bestseller list for a 15th week

  Sales of E L James' Fifty Shades series slumped for a third consecutive week last... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-07-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Media Decoder Blog: Blind Chinese Rights Activist Is Writing a Memoir

Chen Guangcheng, whose nighttime escape and conflict with the Chinese government led to a diplomatic crisis for the United States last spring, is writing a memoir to be published next year. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2012-07-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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E-books Are Booming, and Still Sort of Small

Sales of ebooks doubled in 2011. But books are still an analog business, by a wide margin. Continue reading at AllThingsD

[ AllThingsD | 2012-07-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Writing Life: Chris Colfer of 'Glee' inspired by fairy tales

The television star mines childhood fascination in writing 'The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell.' When Chris Colfer was just 20, he'd already been named one of GQ magazine's men of the year, having sung and acted his way into the hearts of America as Kurt, the high-pitched, openly gay brunet... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-07-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Gabriel García Márquez may never write again

The Nobel Prize-winning author's brother says the effects of dementia mean Márquez may be unable to write. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor

[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2012-07-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Patterson tops £100m

Cornerstone thriller writer James Patterson has become only the third author to break the £... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-07-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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How Much Does the Times Book Review Matter?

The front page of the New York Times Book Review has always been—and continues to be—a much coveted spot for authors and publishers alike. But just how much does a Book Review cover affect a book’s sales in today’s publishing climate—does the revered paper publication still move units in the... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-07-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Booming Digital Sales Could Put Auto Trader Out Of Print

Booming digital revenues now make up almost 80 per cent of sales at Auto Trader and could hasten the end of the print version of the car-classifieds magazine in 12-18 months. Annual turnover rose only 1 per cent to £257.2m, but digital sa ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher

[ Editor & Publisher | 2012-07-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Murdoch Factor in News Corp.’s Split Personality

Rupert Murdoch’s move to split News Corp. into entertainment and publishing businesses may unlock the value he seeks. But the big imponderable in that shift could be Murdoch himself and his tainted legacy, say Wharton management professors Lawrence Hrebiniak and John Kimberly. Continue reading at Knowledge@Wharton

[ Knowledge@Wharton | 2012-07-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Richard Ford: Why writing is an act of optimism

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Ford talks about his new novel "Canada," his memories of the late Raymond Carver, and how art makes life.    Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor

[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2012-06-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Grim tales up for top book award

A look into two of New Zealand's darker tales have made the shortlist for this year's New Zealand Post Book Awards. Continue reading at Stuff

[ Stuff | 2012-06-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Stephen Colbert's children's book tops the bestseller list

Stephen Colbert's latest release – a picture book aimed at young adults and up – follows a pole as it searches for the perfect job. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor

[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2012-05-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Media Decoder Blog: Foer Returns to New Republic as Editor

Two months after obtaining a majority stake in the magazine, Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook, is bringing back Franklin Foer as part of an ambitious plan to remake the magazine. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2012-05-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Big Names Top The Charts

The top three titles on Sweden’s fiction list in April were all in new positions, including Kristina Ohlsson’s Hostage. Ohlsson published her first book in the U.S. in February 2012 with Atria—Unwanted, a mystery cited for “superior prose, plotting, and characterization” in its starred review... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-05-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Book review: 'Second Person Singular' by Sayed Kashua

A lawyer and a caretaker with similar backgrounds follow different paths in contemporary Jerusalem with the same motivation: to leave their small-town Arab lives behind and be accepted for the new personas they have created.Early in the novel, "Second Person Singular," a main character known... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2012-05-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Fifty Shades on top again

The three novels that comprise E L James’ Fifty Shades trilogy were once again the... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-05-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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How fast can they write? E-books push writer productivity

A dozen books a year? Some writers are accelerating the pace in this brave new world of ebooks. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor

[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2012-05-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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