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

Other Publishing stories related to: 'The first-person essays boom: top editors on why confessional writing matters'


Dawn retains top spot but fiction sales slump on 2010

Written By: Philip Stone Publication Date: Tue, 05/07/2011 - 16:04 Dawn French’s début novel, A Tiny Bit Marvellous (Penguin), retains its position at the summit of The Official UK Top 50 week-on-week, thanks to a promotional appearance on ITV’s “This Morning”, and a “£2.99 if you spend £10”... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-07-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Crossan writes three YA titles for Bloomsbury

Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Thu, 30/06/2011 - 15:01 Bloomsbury has acquired three YA books by Irish author, Sarah Crossan. Senior commissioning editor Ele Fountain acquired the trio of titles through Julia Churchill at Greenhouse, with the first title, Breathe, to be... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-06-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #ya titles #ya books #irish author #sarah crossan #younger generation


Media Decoder: Lawrence Steps Down as Norton's Editor In Chief

The longtime editor said that the coming of ebooks played a role in his decision. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2011-06-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #longtime editor #media decoder


Writing young-adult fiction: Better than going to the prom.

Young-adult books are being sold to an audience that can't vote, yet they're being written by people commonly referred to on the Internet as "the olds." We should know. We're two of them. Both of us have made our living writing. One of us in journalism (Grady) and the other in literary fiction... Continue reading at Slate

[ Slate | 2011-06-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #young-adult books


Patterson top in another Random week

Written By: Tom Tivnan Publication Date: Tue, 21/06/2011 - 15:59 Random House had another stellar week, there was a record for Wilbur Smith and a Father's Day push led to double digit week on week rise in value and volume sales for the trade. RH did not repeat its unprecedented octet of the... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-06-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #wilbur smith #volume sales #pretty close


Editors "need digital vision" for their books

Written By: Philip Jones Publication Date: Tue, 21/06/2011 - 11:46 Editors need to have a "vision" of how the content can be used beyond the traditional book, otherwise they risk losing control of the book to the "digital department", Publishers Launch London heard today. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-06-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Grisham top for a second week

Written By: Philip Stone Publication Date: Tue, 14/06/2011 - 16:09 John Grisham's The Confession (Arrow) has retained its position at the summit of the Official UK Top 50 despite a 24% drop in sales week-on-week. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-06-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Quercus buys football title by Constable editor

Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Mon, 13/06/2011 - 08:45 Quercus has acquired a history of Latin American football, written by Constable publishing director Andreas Campomar. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-06-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Larry Hackett Re-Elected President of the American Society of Magazine Editors

Larry Hackett, managing editor of People magazine, has been re-elected president of the American Society of Magazine Editors today at its annual meeting. Continue reading at Folio Magazine

[ Folio Magazine | 2011-06-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #american society #magazine editors #managing editor #people magazine #annual meeting


Grisham top as children's book sales soar

Written By: Philip Stone Publication Date: Tue, 07/06/2011 - 15:44 Thanks in part to a "better than half price" deal at Waterstone's, John Grisham tops the Official UK Top 50 for the first time in five and a half years. The Confession (Arrow), the Arkansas-born legal thriller writer's 23rd... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-06-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Madeleine tops charts again as Bond misses number one

Written By: Philip Stone Publication Date: Wed, 01/06/2011 - 14:53 James Bond has failed in his latest mission: to top the bestseller charts. Despite a bargain £5 deal at Tesco (75% off the £19.99 r.r.p.), sales of Jeffery Deaver's 007 novel, Carte Blanche (Hodder & Stoughton), were... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-06-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #bestseller charts #jeffery deaver


Publishers Starting to Name-Check iTunes "Top Grossing Apps"

From Yahoo's The Cutline: At a panel during the TechCrunch conference in New York last week, Greg Clayman, publisher of News Corp.'s Daily iPad publication, said the application had "almost a million downloads" since its launch in February. "This puts us in the large pantheon of large apps,"... Continue reading at Folio Magazine

[ Folio Magazine | 2011-05-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Second week at the top for Madeleine memoir

Written By: Philip Stone Publication Date: Tue, 24/05/2011 - 15:55 Kate McCann's Madeleine (Bantam Press) was comfortably the bestselling book at UK booksellers for the second week running, selling 63,909 copies in its first full week on sale. It brings total sales of the hardback edition of... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #bestselling book #week running #full week #uk booksellers #hardback edition #non-fiction titles #records began #delia smith #david beckham #tony blair


Top Five Mags First Half: Sneakers, Yachts and Hiking Boots

Some new magazine faces have shown up in min's top 5 ad-page charts (see below) for June and for the first half (January-June 2011 vs. 2010). They are sun-bleached, health-minded, sports and outdoor enthusiast in Competitor Group's Competitor, Source Interlink's Power & Motoryacht, Mariah... Continue reading at Folio Magazine

[ Folio Magazine | 2011-05-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #competitor group #hiking boots #magazine faces #source interlink


Kindle E-books Top Print Books Sales on Amazon

It happened. Amazon says ebook sales have surpassed physical book sales on Amazon.com. Continue reading at PC World

[ PC World | 2011-05-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Madeleine surges to top spot

Written By: Philip Stone Publication Date: Tue, 17/05/2011 - 16:04 Kate McCann's Madeleine (Bantam Press), the story of the abduction and continued search for her daughter, has become one of the fastest-selling non-fiction books since records began. Helped by better-than-half price deals at W... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #records began #hardback edition


Notting Hill Editions to revive essay publishing

Written By: Benedicte Page Publication Date: Thu, 05/05/2011 - 15:22 New imprint Notting Hill Editions launches today (5th May), with the aim of revitalising essay publishing. Essays by George Perec, Roland Barthes, Lavinia Greenlaw and Jonathan Keates, accompanied by introductions by the... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-05-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #margaret drabble #james fenton


E-Book Boom Boosts Simon & Schuster [MediaMemo]

All of those Amazon Kindle sales -- and, presumably, sales of competitive ebook readers from Barnes & Noble and Apple -- have made an impact at publisher Simon & Schuster. The CBS unit says Q1 digital sales doubled over the previous year, and now represent 18 percent of the company's the... Continue reading at AllThingsD

[ AllThingsD | 2011-05-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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E-books among Amazon.co.uk's top sellers as its parent's profits tumble

Written By: Lisa Campbell Publication Date: Wed, 27/04/2011 - 09:39 Amazon.com has reported a steep drop in profit despite boosting sales by over a third. Amazon.co.uk also revealed that one print book and four ebooks were among its top 10 bestselling items in the quarter, with the Kindle... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2011-04-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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BEA 2011: It's Personal: A Show Overview

"The value of personal interaction still trumps all" is a firm belief of Steve Rosato, BEA show manager, who is all fired up for BEA 2011, the second under his command. And while the event's main focus is books and authors, technology and the digital revolution is also at the epicenter of this... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2011-04-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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