Personal Essay 1: Exploring
GUIDE TO NONFICTION COURSES
Personal Essay 1 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.
If you feel you’re solid with personal essay basics, you may go straight to Personal Essay 2. If you’re in doubt about this, start with Personal Essay 1; it will be valuable even if some of it is review.
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.
Valuable, motivating and relevant. It gives a very clear outline of what personal essays should be.
Alicia Bridges
journalist
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 Essay & Opinion Writing, which includes personal essay, among other forms of viewpoint writing.
Upcoming Classes
NYC classes are being scheduled. Please check back soon.
Price
Registration fee $25, paid once per term
2-Day
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Zoom
Real-time videoconference
Tuition: $185
-
One-on-One
Tuition:
Mini - $395, Private - $775
Available on Zoom
Syllabus
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
Note: Content may vary among individual classes.
Teachers
Janet Flora
Janet Flora has published nonfiction in Yalabusha Review, Willow Review, Forge, and the Sanskrit Literary-Arts Magazine. Her short stories have appeared in New Orleans Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Portland Review, and Hawaii Pacific Review. She has taught at NYU and the School of Visual Arts. She holds a BA from City University, Richmond College, and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from The New School.
Read morehas published nonfiction in Yalabusha Review, Willow Review, Forge, and the Sanskrit Literary-Arts Magazine. Her short stories have appeared in New Orleans Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Portland Review, and Hawaii Pacific Review. She has taught at NYU and the School of Visual Arts. She holds a BA from City University, Richmond College, and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from The New School.
Related Courses
Essay & Opinion Writing I
Various types of viewpoint writing—essays, op-eds, reviews, and more.
Memoir Writing I
True stories about aspects of the writer’s life, whether essay or book-length.
Creative Nonfiction 101
A great entry point for the creative forms of nonfiction—memoir, essay, feature articles, reviews, etc.
