The personal essay has a family of close cousins – personal articles, columns, op-ed pieces, and letters to the editor. (see my other posts on the personal essay and also an article I wrote at www.writermag.com/).
The personal article is like this website: I’m writing about my own experiences but the purpose is to give you information about writing and to help you start writing. The personal article is written in the first person and can range from how to travel to Peru in three easy steps to how to fry the perfect egg.
A column is a weekly, or monthly essay about the experiences and thoughts of the writer. They can range from the political to lovelorn advice, from humor to film reviews.
An op-ed piece is a one time opinion page essay in the newspaper. The author has expertise in whatever the subject is whether brain surgery, high finance or traveling LA freeways. (Live & Learn Dept.: I’d always thought the term Op-Ed meant “opinion-editorial”, and had told God knows how many students this fact. I was wrong: it means “opposite the editorial page.”)
Letters to the editor can be a wonderful writing exercise: you feel a strong response to an article or situation and you craft this response into a piece of writing with the possibility of having it published. My father, who wanted to be a writer, wrote and published hundreds of letters to the editor and he loved the responses he got from people who read them My mother, on the other hand, wouldn’t leave the house for days after some of his letters were published, and she could never understand why he loved to stir people up.
To Do: Think about what you love to do. Going out to restaurants? Going to movies? Reading the latest books? Cooking? Hanging out with your dog or cat? Traveling as much as possible? Collecting stamps? Practicing yoga? Biking around town? Whatever it is, and there are maybe a million choices, write a short piece about it. Nothing too literary or ambitious, just something about why you love this activity and what you did about it today or last week. Think of writing to an audience who is really interested in your subject, or at least very curious. After you’ve written a couple of these pieces think about a small local publication that might publish you as a columnist. Or you could always go your own way and create an online blog.
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