“Nothing extraordinary has ever happened to me.”

“I don’t think anyone would be interested in reading about that.”

These are some common hesitations shared by nonfiction writers worried that they have not had remarkable enough lives to engage readers’ attention. Yet most of our lives are not comprised of a series of extravagant events, but rather a compilation of small moments that nonetheless have large personal and political impacts.

(6 Types of Personal Essays for Writers to Try.)

My latest book, Abbreviate, is a small collection of small essays that examines big ideas, like how the injustice and violence of girlhood leads women to accept and even claim small spaces and stories. Though the essays in this collection focus on everyday experiences—probing the girlhood play of Polly Pocket and planetariums, strobing with a sleepover blacklight illuminating teenage magic, and ricocheting with the regret and rage of adult women whose lives have been constellated by harm—it is this commonality that reinforces the significance of the stories.

When I began writing Abbreviate, I wanted to write stories from my childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood that others deemed too small to be significant. These were the childhood experiences I tried to tell adults, only to be told little girls should be seen and not heard. These were the stories from my teenage years that shaped me irrevocably, but were deemed too commonplace to warrant much attention. And these were the experiences from my adulthood shared by many women yet silenced by a sexist society. Growing up, I shared many experiences with girls and women around me, as well as the experience of being told our stories were too small to matter. And so, it was these small stories that I wanted to praise.

~

Many readers of nonfiction turn to the genre looking for connection. While we certainly read to learn about lives unlike our own, we also read for the familiar, to see something of ourselves reflected in the pages, to witness a world that makes us feel a sense of unity rather than isolation. There is an inherent power in engaging with a stranger’s story and thinking, “Yes, I’ve felt that way too” or “I thought I was the only one.” We read nonfiction to feel a sense of wholeness, to feel as though we are a part of the larger human experience.

If we only focus our work on the extraordinary, however, we risk losing this quality. We risk alienating our readers. We risk missing the point of the genre entirely—the poignancy and power of the everyday. And we risk alienating ourselves from the narratives of our own lives, thinking instead that we are somehow not living or writing well if we are not exceptional.

Part of the craft of writing creative nonfiction is retraining ourselves to notice and appreciate small moments in our lives. Contemporary culture tends to favor extremes in news headlines, social media, and movies, so it can seem as though storytelling requires dramatic events. But there is as much narrative tension in the small moments of our lives as there is in these extremes, perhaps even more so, for what is higher stakes than the truth?

Learning to cultivate a sense of curiosity about small daily moments can begin anytime. Going through old photos, listening to music, reading old letters or emails, or reminiscing about particular periods in your life will naturally produce them. You do not need epiphanic revelation or a sudden stroke of artistic inspiration to locate a meaningful memory, image, or emotion. If a particular moment in your life, however small, is one that brought you pleasure, heartache, intrigue, or simply stands out strongly in your memory, then this is a good sign that it will do the same for readers. What matters is your willingness to notice, your belief that the minutia of your life matters, and your ability to reflect on what larger truths these small stories reveal.

For example, while Abbreviate contains extreme events, the majority of moments throughout the collection are brief flashes. Dramatic events like domestic violence, sexual assault, and abuse by authority figures juxtapose with small events like childhood games, teenage school projects, and adult trips to museums. The large events are certainly important to the narrative, but the smaller moments are equally important, perhaps even more so because of their unexpected narrative weight. While it was easy to reflect on significant moments of narrative tension in my life, it was more powerful to reflect on forgotten moments, and I found that lingering memories of elementary school classrooms and middle school dances gave way to more varied memories with greater thematic significance.

When we write about extremes, there’s often little opportunity for thematic surprise. Writing about my middle school principal running off with a student, for example, expectedly leads to outrage, shock, violation. But writing about small moments provides narrative flexibility and many opportunities for thematic exploration. Writing about building a life-size model of a refrigerator for a middle school project, for example, foreshadowed the disordered eating many girls I grew up with experienced later as adults. Surprising yourself with the power of the small will naturally surprise your reader.

Click to continue.

Small moments can also lend themselves to creating stronger thematic connections. For example, when writing about domestic violence, which eventually led to my aunt’s husband running over his ex-wife, an image of my aunt teaching me to play with stomp rockets, launching them up into the air and far away to safety provided more interesting images, metaphoric opportunity, and thematic resonance, than writing about my uncle directly. Since I was a child when this event took place, it also makes sense to write about childhood memories of play, rather than the adult events I didn’t fully understand at the time. When reflecting on my uncle, the memory of his violence always surfaces, but it was remembering my childhood play that allowed me access to writing about this difficult subject and with a more nuanced approach.

Once you have determined which small moments were impactful, it is then time to use them thematically. Remember, readers engage with nonfiction not simply for the plot, but for a larger reflection about the human experience, so it is not enough simply to share specific memories. Instead, you must work to make greater meaning beyond these memories, to use these recollections as the impetus for or the lens through which you create deeper reflection.

Many times, the small experiences or images that you have chosen to write about will lead you directly to larger themes. You might find that writing about quilting with your grandmother as a child lends itself to themes about piecing together your family history as an adult. You might find that writing about playing with dolls as a girl lends itself to larger themes about motherhood. Moving beyond the memory can be as simple as asking yourself what this memory taught you about the world or how this memory foreshadowed what was to come later in your life.

Other times, you might find that your themes come first. When we begin with themes rather than plot, it can sometimes be difficult to know how best to illustrate these themes. But turning to the small moments in our lives can give us a sense of direction. For example, in Abbreviate, I wanted to examine the rise of sexism in America, as well as the ways women have been erased from history. I did so by focusing on small moments from my past like how elementary boys learned bullying techniques from adult men or the ways a girlhood visit to a planetarium revealed few women constellating the sky. Reverse engineering allows us to sift through the card catalogs of our minds to locate specific examples that might illustrate the larger points we are trying to make. Remember, these memories don’t need to speak directly to the themes. Sometimes it is best if they provide emotional weight, rather than direct commentary.

To create deeper meaning from your memories, you can also either implement direct comparisons or utilize juxtapositions. You might share specific small moments to reflect directly on a related topic. For example, in Abbreviate, I share stories of being required to apologize, smile, or hug people even when I didn’t want to in order to reflect on the ways girls and women are taught to conceal their true emotions for the ease of others. Direct comparisons strengthen both the specific memory and the larger thematic weight, allowing readers to fully engage with each.

On the other hand, you can also create deeper meaning from your memories by using stark contrast. By juxtaposing a specific memory with a seemingly unrelated larger theme, you employ the element of surprise for readers, moving the reading experience beyond expectation and toward originality. For example, describing learning to play Dungeons & Dragons in the wake of our current political climate allowed me to reflect on the ways men seek to control even women’s minds and imaginations. Contrast allows both you and your reader to move beyond the expected, and to be reminded of the power of the genre and the ability of our lives to move in surprising ways.

~

“I can’t believe I never noticed that before.”

“Even after all these years, I still remember that.”

“I never realized how much that tiny moment impacted me.”

Growing up, many of the girls and women around me believed their stories and selves too small. And yet, if we had only shared our small stories, we might have understood their significance in our lives and in the lives of others, might have seen our connection, might have realized our individual and collective power. By claiming space on the page, we might have learned to claim space in the real world, might have demanded more for ourselves and each other, might have stretched ourselves in search of all that we desired and might one day achieve. In recognizing the power of the small, we might have recognized our ability to tell stories larger than we ever imagined.

Check out Sarah Fawn Montgomery’s Abbreviate here:

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I am about to introduce you to one of my favorite student essays. Maybe my absolute favorite. There is a story behind it. Over many years, I have worked with a public school teacher named Holly Slaughter. She is an expert on teaching reading and writing, a published author, and a leader for teachers at the elementary school level. Holly has two daughters, and the younger one, Emme, was working on her college admissions essay. She wanted to join her older sister at the University of Florida. Now Holly knows how to coach writers of all ages, but as sometimes happens in families, Emme preferred not to be coached by her mom. That’s where I came in.

(How to Write a Five-Paragraph Essay That Works.)

Emme sent me a draft of her story. I read it once; I read it again, thinking of ways I might help her improve the draft. I read it a third time. Then I messaged Emme and her mom. “It’s perfect,” I told them. “I have no changes to suggest. If UF reads this and does not accept you, you don’t want to be there.”

What was all the hubbub about? See if this essay excites you as much as it did me.

She Wants to Be an Astrophysicist: Get Used to It

By Emme Slaughter

(650 words)

Two years ago, I won my family’s Fantasy Football League. To many this may not seem like a highly esteemed accomplishment. But if you were to ask me how I felt, I would have told you I won the actual Super Bowl.

I eagerly began to count down the days until Christmas, excited not for the holiday itself, but instead because I would get to see my entire family gathered at one long dinner table. Put in more accurate terms, I would be surrounded by people who had all just suffered defeat to the youngest member of the family. I was ecstatic.

My whole life, I had spent every Sunday and Monday night sitting on the very edge of my couch with my dad, ready to leap out of my seat and cheer at any play that gained over 30 yards. I memorized all the penalties, all my favorite players’ names, and became my mom’s favorite person to ask when she got a football question on her Sunday crossword.

So, when I walked into Nana and Poppa’s on Christmas with a big grin on my face, exuberant to talk about my team’s flawless fantasy season, I was not expecting the response from my oldest cousin, Josh: “How could we get beaten by a girl?” My heart sank as ripples of laughter, mostly from my boy cousins and uncles, echoed throughout the room.

While my response to Josh should have been a confident “Get used to it,” my fifteen-year-old self could not muster a word. I tried to hold back tears. Was I embarrassed? And why? I now know that what I was feeling was shame, rooted in the message that a woman could never be more knowledgeable than a man at football, or anything for that matter.

The way that I view the world changed on that day. I became heightened in my awareness of gender roles and societal perceptions, especially as I explored my future in STEM. In my AP physics class, I couldn’t help but notice that I was part of a very small portion of girls in a male-dominated class.

Between freshman and sophomore year, I was invited to attend an engineering camp at a state university. Excited, I listened to the camp leaders share the agenda for the week, including all kinds of engineering activities and competitions. We would build marshmallow launchers, attend lectures, and kick off the camp with the ultimate competition: science trivia.

I remember looking around the room and noticing the majority of male students. I found myself allowing the implicit message to seep into my brain: boys are naturally better than girls at science. Wasn’t the very make‑up of the room showing me just that? I blocked out everything and focused on answering the questions at break-neck speed. Later, when I held the pineapple-shaped trivia championship trophy above my head, all of my fellow campers, boys and girls, were screaming and cheering me on.

Today, I have taken Marie Curie as my role model, and just as she did, I strive to be the best in everything I do regardless of whom I compete against. Curie discovered radium. She observed that radiation wasn’t dependent on the organization of atoms at a molecular level; something was happening inside the atom itself. The atom is not inert, indivisible, or solid.

Like Curie’s discovery, something has happened inside me, deeper than the molecular level. There have been times that I have been shaken and so unsure of myself that I was unwilling to speak. And times when I have felt indivisible and unstoppable. I am growing to understand that it does not matter whether I am attempting to succeed in a career dominated by men, because my mind and actions are completely independent of those around me. For those who doubt me along the way, I say, just wait and see. And get used to it.

THINGS I LOVE ABOUT THIS ESSAY

It’s the essay only Emme could write.

It has a catchy title. This essay has a title and a brief subtitle, both of which tell us something about the writer. If you have a catchy title that attracts the interest of the reader and also captures the main message of the essay, you are in great shape. Notice that her desire to become an astrophysicist is never mentioned in the story. But she doesn’t have to because that title is like something on a billboard or a movie house marquee. The title tells, and the story shows. Meanwhile, the subtitle, “Get used to it,” is a brilliant use of a catchphrase that expresses the strong voice of the writer. Notice that she uses it three times — which in writing is always a magic number. She uses it in the subtitle, in the middle, and then again at the end. You plant it, you water it, you harvest it.

It has spirit. Sam’s story had a playful spirit. Emme’s essay has spirit, too, from first word to last. Sam is a romantic. Emme is a warrior princess, someone who is determined, indefatigable (which means she is tireless!) with her eyes on the prize. She has heart, which she displays in the most casual settings, and the most serious ones.

It has a focus. One way to tell if an essay has focus is to try to summarize the meaning in as few words as possible. She does the trick with the title, but supports it throughout: “I am a determined young woman whose vocation is to work in a field now dominated by boys and men. It doesn’t matter if you approve or not. Here I come.”

It reveals her character and her knowledge base. When I read the essay, I drew immediate conclusions about what kind of person the writer is. From the evidence of the text, I would use these adjectives: intelligent, curious, determined, focused, versatile, sensitive, clever, organized, and literate. She could have referenced Shakespeare rather than Madame Curie, but she makes the good decision to reveal the knowledge base she wanted to pursue. And it gets brainier and brainier. In that sense our author, intelligent throughout these 650 words, reveals her intelligence in stages. It is obvious that colleges and universities want to accept brainy young people, and the readers of this essay will get a good insight into what this student already knows and what kind of learner she is likely to be.

Its use of detail

It has vivid scenes. The first scene is at a family Christmas dinner, where the boys shame each other for losing to a girl. It includes that snippet of dialogue. Her disappointment in that moment is neutralized in the second scene where she lifts the trophy. I love the fact that she includes the detail that the trophy is shaped like a pineapple.

It shows and it tells. In kindergarten, I learned the game show-​and-​tell. I would bring in an object from home and tell the class a story about it. Never did I think that it would lead to a lesson I would use in my writing for a lifetime. Emme tells us about boys thinking that they are better in science than girls, and she also shows us that bias in action. She tells us about how she grew in her confidence, and we see it when she holds up the trophy. Show and tell.

It has a great backup singer. My analogy of the backup singer refers to any person, living or dead, famous or not, whom you quote or refer to in your essay. Our young author chooses a brilliant one: Madame Curie, one of the most famous scientists in history — and, of course, a woman.

It moves from popular culture to science. It is so much fun to witness that journey this writer takes us on, from a family gathering focusing on football and popular culture to lessons at the end about her knowledge of science.

Click to continue.

Its use of language

It reveals the power of two. The number of examples a writer uses has meaning. When a writer uses two examples, they are asking the reader to compare and contrast. In that sense, Emme offers two moments of triumph: the football pool and the science trivia contest. They are alike, but different.The first one leaves her disappointed because the boys reveal a belief that they are or should be better than girls. In the second, she is cheered and celebrated by all.

It climbs up and down the ladder of language. The writer uses two different types of language. Words that make us think, and words that help us see. Words about ideas, and words about things. A phrase about ideas, such as “awareness of gender roles and societal perceptions” is high on the ladder. But words lower on the ladder, such as “marshmallow launchers” and “pineapple-​shaped . . . trophy” are things we can see and hold in our hands.

It makes good use of white space. OK, I fibbed just a little. The essay wasn’t perfect. I did make one suggestion to improve it. I thought, in her original version, Emme’s paragraphs were a bit too long. There is nothing wrong with good long paragraphs, except for this: They are harder to read than shorter ones. You know that a sentence ends with a period. But you may not have thought that a paragraph ends with a period followed by white space. That white space helps the reader relax. The reader can see the parts better. If a reader sees a 650-​word paragraph, they assume that the meaning, like the visual text, is dense and difficult to plod through.

It has a transformative journey.

It reveals how she overcomes obstacles. It turns out that a character’s ability to overcome obstacles remains an enduring pattern in storytelling, one that has existed from the earliest examples of Western literature. You may have heard of an ancient epic called the Odyssey, in which it takes the hero ten years to find his way home after the Trojan War. Or think of everything that Harry Potter must suffer, including the murder of his parents when he was an infant, before he can overcome the ultimate evil. The famous novelist Kurt Vonnegut advises writers to create a likable character and then spend five hundred pages doing terrible things to him. The idea is to see what the hero is made of. In Emme Slaughter’s case, she has 650 words, not 650 pages, but we see what she is made of — in her family and in her education — by overcoming traditional obstacles placed in the path of women’s achievement.

It ups the ante. Emme’s essay moves in lots of ways. One move is from less serious to more serious. She wins in a fantasy football league. Then she wins at a science camp. Then she chooses Marie Curie, one of history’s most famous scientists, as a role model. This is clearly a resilient young woman who would thrive in a demanding academic environment.

It has a strong ending. I think of a good ending as a gold coin the writer gives the reader for making the journey. Thanks for reading all the way through. This reward is for you. What makes Emme’s ending so strong is that she has foreshadowed it, beginning with the title and then building steam through the text.

Epilogue: The world of science, from the time Emme was a little girl, imposed obstacle after obstacle to her achieving her dreams.

Paul Cottle, a physics professor at Florida State University, writes about how few women wind up in his engineering, math, and computer science classes. The number can be as low as one in five, even though many universities are more than 60 percent female. That last data point may make it harder for women to get into schools that do not want a great imbalance between women and men.

I caught up with Emme’s work at the University of Florida, the college of her choice. As a sophomore, she earned a  position as a research assistant to a science professor. She wrote in a text: “Yes, we will be doing biosignature detection using gas chromatography-​mass spectrometry with the Mars Rover and other landers!! And then doing field work and running rock samples through the GC‑MS system here and comparing them with the samples we get from the Rover data to search for evidence of life beyond Earth!! I start tomorrow.” It appears the young woman, whose boy cousins mocked her in her youth, is living her dream to become an astrophysicist.

So far you have seen the essay by Sam French, which reveals his wit, his charm, and his intelligence. Then you met Emme Slaughter, who shows us her brains, her commitment, and her determination. I did not coach either Sam or Emme, even though I have known their families since they were young children. Both have the advantage of being born into families where reading and writing are very important. Sam is the son of a prize-​winning journalist and an outstanding high school English teacher. I have worked with Emme’s mom, Holly Slaughter, who is a leader among language arts teachers in the public schools. I think it’s cool that neither Sam nor Emme sought out their parents for help when it came time to write their essay. Each wrote the essay that only they could write.

Check out Roy Peter Clark’s Writing Tools for the College Admissions Essay here:

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Credit line: Excerpted from WRITING TOOLS FOR THE COLLEGE ADMISSIONS ESSAY by Roy Peter Clark. Copyright © 2025 by Roy Peter Clark.  Used with permission of Little, Brown Spark, an imprint of Little, Brown and Company. New York, NY. All rights reserved.

The post My Favorite Student Essay of All Time appeared first on Writer's Digest.

Want an opportunity to win a WD award? Keep checking our competitions page for upcoming competitions.

1. “Ground Zero” by F.A. Battle

2. “They Say if You Name the Thing, it Helps” by Allie Dixon

3. “A Stroke, a Recovery, and a Marriage Revised” by Charlotte Troyanowski

4. “How to (not) get into an Ivy League School” by jlee

5. “Letters from Far Away” by Jean Palmer Heck

6. “The Verizon Guy” by J. Shepherd

7. “A Baker’s Dozen: Thirteen Perspectives on Anorexia” by Deborah Svec-Carstens

8. “Ode to an Ugly Urn” by Katrina Gallegos

9. “Delivery Notes” by J. Mackenzie

10. “Didu” by M. Talu

11. “The Hunt” by Elinor Horner

12. “Cardinal Virtues” by Robin Clifford Wood

13. “Treasures from the Sea” by Renee Srch

14. “A Clash of Cultures Around the Dinner Table” by Genine Babakian

15. “AFTERTHOUGHT ON AN EPITAPH” by Melanie Verbout

16. “Because the Night belongs to Mothers” by Hope Loraine Cotter

17. “My Name Isn’t Michelle” by Nicholle Harrison 

18. “Historian of Silences” by Jonathan Odell

19. “In the End” by Mark V Sroufe

20. “Man Enough” by Christian Escalona

21. “Across the Gulf” by Annie Barker

22. “On Fathering (What You Didn’t Know)” by John Cheesebrow

23. “My Name is Not Sally” by Celia Ruiz

24. “An Abortion, a hysterectomy, and Black Sweatpants” by Lynne Schmidt

25. “Aging, Angst, & Anxiety” by Stephanie Baker

Check out the latest Writer’s Digest Competitions!

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(10 Ways to Improve Your Writing While Thinking Like a Comedy Writer.)

Suddenly, a loud ruckus shatters the early morning hush as a middle-aged man and woman board the plane. 

“You’re the one who left me,” the woman is shouting. 

“I would never have left you if it hadn’t been for the gun,” the man shouts back.

As the couple heads down the aisle, I glance nervously at the two empty seats next to me. I breathe a sigh of relief as they squabble all the way to the back of the plane. But fate is not kind on this day. They circle back and end up, you guessed it, in the two seats right next to mine.

“Hi there. I’m Martha. What’s your name?” The woman leans over toward me, her voice loud and coarse, the alcohol on her breath overwhelming.

“Hello,” I murmur reluctantly while groping through my backpack for something to read.

To the amusement of the early morning passengers, Martha returns to her bickering with the man next to her, the whine of the plane’s engines no match for her booming tirade. More entertaining than any inflight movie, we soon learn that the man is Martha’s ex-husband, Henry. He used to hit Martha. He used to throw her up against the wall of their trailer. But Martha still loved him. Until the day something inside of her snapped and she waited for him in the driveway where Henry came face-to-face with his own shotgun. He never hit Martha again. 

With all thoughts of napping now aside, coffee finally arrives. For me, that is. Martha has ordered a Bloody Mary.

She asks me again for my name. “Rita,” I tell her.

She tells me about the guy she lives with now who refuses to marry her. She tells me how much she misses her mother who died when Martha was 12. She tells me about her 21-year-old son who recently stole her life savings and disappeared. The details of her life rush by like the clouds outside the window. Despite myself, I feel my heart welling up in sympathy.

As I finally set my book down and truly listen to Martha, an uncontrollable shiver suddenly lances up my spine. Maybe it’s a draft. Maybe it’s the chill of her words. Immediately, Martha takes off her blue vinyl coat and gently places it around my shoulders despite my very sincere objections.

When we finally land, I try to return the coat. But Martha stubbornly refuses. She tells me that it gives her great pleasure to leave me with this gift.  Not wanting to delay her departure a moment longer, I agree to keep it, just until she gets off the plane. 

As I walk up the jetway, I assure myself that I’m just hanging on to the coat in case I see Martha in the airport. But the coat eventually makes it all the way back home where it now resides in the basement.

Why did I keep the coat?

I had to write about it. In order to try to make sense of the inexplicable events of that flight, I had to recreate the scene—beginning, middle, and end—over and over and over again until I reached a place of understanding. Until my word and thought processing illuminated what, besides the coat, I could take away from that plane.

The resulting essay led me to create more like it, which eventually led me to writing a column for The Providence Journal. I considered each piece to be an 800-word story. That’s all the space I had to work with so each and every word had to move the narrative forward, share an observation or experience, and ultimately leave readers with insights they might not have considered before.

Click to continue.

Surprisingly, each column had its own way of coming to me. Maybe this happens in your writing, too. Sometimes, you know exactly how to begin. Sometimes, the ending appears first. Often, you’ve got nothing at all except a visceral feeling that there’s something in your idea that’s worth excavating, a gem that needs to be tilled over and up and down and around until eventually it comes shining up to the surface.

Years later, when my husband and I dropped our youngest child at New York University for the first time and returned home to our “empty nest,” I found myself needing to do a lot of thinking which, for me, meant a lot of writing. In this new stage of life, as I encountered changes in my marriage and friendships, my aging parents and growing-up children, my work, my play, our house, our finances—just about everything—I kept writing. One story at a time. Eventually, I realized there might be a book here.

My memoir-in-essays needed a cohesive structure to hold it together. Chronology worked well with several flashbacks sprinkled in to provide a panoramic perspective. The characters were easy to work with since I’ve known them for years. I chose to ground each chapter in scene, which meant many of my earlier, narrative essays were discarded or rewritten. I explored the challenges of our empty nest in the early chapters and resolved them one way or another toward the end of the book. The theme of the book—how accidental motherhood changed me—became increasingly apparent as the stories melded together to form an overarching one.

Admittedly, the telling felt vulnerable at times. But I believe that honesty and authenticity is the only way to relate with readers. To share thoughts and feelings, painful and awkward though they might be at times. To find the answers to questions not unlike the ones that confronted me on that 6 AM flight to Boston.

Why did I keep the coat?

What made Martha so different? What possessed her to divulge the private details of her life to someone she had never met before? Even little children know enough not to talk to strangers. Oh, a pleasantry or two, perhaps, but not the intimate musings of a soul poured like coffee into the cup of the stranger seated in 24D. 

The unspoken rules of social etiquette have taught us to keep our distance. Keep our cards close. But unlike most of us, Martha did not play by those rules. The circumstances of her life had seen to that.

So there she was. Sitting next to me. Just exactly who she was and nothing else. “Hello stranger. Here, take the coat off my back. You’re cold and I like you. You listened to me.” 

No games.  No pretenses. Just stark, raving honesty. How could I expect anything less of myself?

And so the coat is still down there. Still in the basement. Tangible proof of what Martha taught me. That the boundaries we carefully construct are as fragile as gossamer. So why not reach beyond them while we still have the chance?

Give some time. Give some attention. Give some empathy.

Maybe even a coat.

Check out Rita Lussier’s And Now, Back to Me here:

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The post If the Coat Doesn’t Fit, Write About It appeared first on Writer's Digest.

As we move into a new year, it’s time to get the creative gears turning to make this your most successful year ever. Whether you want to write personal essays that grab the attention of editors, write in a new genre, or simply generate more story ideas, this issue has it all.

Features include:

+ The WD Interview: Pat Barker: The Booker Prize winning author of Regeneration shares the role characters play in developing novel ideas, explains what appeals to her about reimagining mythology, and discusses the newest novel in her Women of Troy series, The Voyage Home. By Amy Jones

+ The Idea Factory: Tired of staring at an empty screen? Unlock your inner fiction generator with these surprising inspiration techniques. By Ryan G. Van Cleave

+ Seinfeld Was Right; That’s a Story: Use mundane moments from everyday life to create stories that pack a punch. By Jeff Somers

+ “You’ll be a great essay.” How to write six types of personal essays by finding the funny in your life. By Elissa Bassist

+ The Shortest Distance Between Two Points: 10 tips for writing a novel using 100-word stories. By Ran Walker

+ Mayfly Marketing: How to sell your novel in a short-attention span world. By Paul Goat Allen

+ How to Write in Different Genres: Emiko Jean and Yulin Kuang share tips and strategies for how they successfully write in different genres and mediums. By Jennifer Chen

This issue includes articles about how and when to use song lyrics, what to do if no one comes to your book talk, and suggestions for supporting self-published authors. Plus, your favorite columns like Building Better Worlds, Agent Alcove, Meet the Agent, Publishing Insights, For All Ages, and much more!

Subscribe to Writer’s Digest today for this to be your first issue!

The post Writer’s Digest January/February 2025 Cover Reveal appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(Find more Killer Writers conversations here.)

“Callan, what inspired you to focus on writing essays as a literary form? What’s the attraction?”

“I would consider my real writing to be writing fiction, but other modes allow me to take a break from that—especially if I’m getting stuck in a book project or something—and still feel like I’m being productive and writing and producing and maybe getting something published. I used to write short stories more, and then I could send things out and maybe get a published story here and there. But moving into novels, there’s this long period where you get no validation for what you’re doing, and you’re sort of like writing in a vacuum. In part, writing essays is like, well, I can spend a couple of days, crank this short essay out, get it published, make a little money, and feel like I’m finishing something. I like to finish things. And novels, it seems like you never finish them. That’s one big part of it. I am writing for a particular fishing magazine, for example. It’s good writing and photography and about the fishing lifestyle. They give me a lot of latitude in what I can write about if there’s a little fishing in there. Most of the things I write are about something else, quite honestly, and then some fishing happens. It’s fun. The shorter form, I think, is what attracts me to it. Short fiction, which I used to love to write, no one wants to publish short fiction and pay you for it, at least, in my opinion. So that’s kind of off my radar.”

“How do you find unique and compelling essay writing topics?”

“A lot of it is things from my life. They’re primarily personal essays. Writing a personal essay allows me to work through stuff I’m trying to figure out in my head and put a finer point on my opinions and feelings about an environmental issue or even my work life. It’s something that I can’t do in my fiction as well.”

“When writing personal essays, what key elements make a personal essay stand out?”

“I think having a personal dilemma allows you to access a bigger issue. I’m thinking of one I wrote about guiding. Often, the kind of people I guide come down on, for instance, a vastly different type of political side than I do. It’s this situation where money is exchanging hands, and I’m in a service job, and how you interact with someone you may not interact with on a normal basis, or even like very much, but for this day, you need to show them a good time. I think most people have something like that in their work life.”

“And in the writing life, I’m sure, as well.”

“Yes, exactly. So, finding a personal thing that allows you to branch into a more universal subject would probably be something I start with.”

“Speaking of that, how do your essays balance your voice with that universal appeal? How do you assimilate your voice into that larger audience?”

“All of my writing is a lot of trial and error. Probably more so, veering towards the error side. I don’t have much like, ‘Okay, I will write a personal essay. This is how I’m going to start it.’ Usually, a personal essay comes from something I’ve been thinking about for a long time, and then I try to think of different ways to get into it. And again, most of my personal essays are for fishing crowds, so it’s specific. One thing that helps me is that it is an area where I have a certain level of expertise. I’m immersed in that world, and I know a lot of different little angles. Writing a personal essay about other things would be difficult for me. I’m trying to think of another area I could write a personal essay about and feel comfortable—maybe surfing, but that’s about it. Outdoor pursuits are easy for me to launch into.”

“The whole idea of a personal essay is personal. We all know the importance of sucking someone into what you’re writing. Do you have any techniques you use for that first sentence?”

“I do this with my fiction, especially, but I find myself doing it with personal essays. Having just read many things, you’re probably the same way. Most readers are the same if something doesn’t get me quickly in that first paragraph; there are so many conflicts for interest these days. I try to have it start with something very concrete. It’s not thoughts, probably not even a description of something; it’s doing something—whatever that is. Very concrete. Most of my fiction starts with the character performing a physical action and then goes from there. That’s general, but I try to start everything I write by describing a physical activity.”

“Starting at the beginning, what approach do you use for the structure and flow of your essays?”

“I’m not very original. Most of my things have a typical opening situation. Then I digress into my feelings about that sort of thing that may take a lot of different branches and then follow up to sort of the opening construct, whatever that may be. It’s standard.”

Check out Callan Wink’s Beartooth here:

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“Do you find that all of this comes out of you organically, or is there research involved?”

“I’m not a big researcher, unfortunately. I respect writers who go heavy on research. I am not inclined to do that, which does limit me a little bit in my subject matter.”

“It fulfills the definition of personal essays because it’s coming from you. If it’s personal, how much detail do you feel inclined to include in each essay?”

“If it’s a personal essay, there does need to be something in there that I’ve written that I’m slightly uncomfortable about sharing. It doesn’t have to be anything crazy, but it’s not something I usually come out with, you know, in a conversation with somebody I just met—that sort of thing. But somehow, I can more easily do that in writing if I’ve had time to think about it.”

“Where do you find the courage for that? Because it does take courage sometimes.”

“It has not gotten any easier. It’s not like I’m making crazy admissions, but I feel like, for it to affect readers, it does need to have a little something in it of yourself. Again, maybe not something you share a lot.”

“Any tricks for readers in making personal essays relatable to a broader audience?”

“It’s the comfort of starting in a subject area where you have a certain degree of comfortability with the subject. For me, that’s fishing. And luckily for me, there’s a lot of fishing writing being done, and there has been for a long time. There’s this sort of market for that, which is nice. I don’t know if it’s the same for many other things like fishing. Again, starting from a point that I’m very comfortable with in terms of the subject matter allows me to branch out into other things that may interest me or affect my life.”

“The uniting thing, then, would be fishing. So, whatever they write for these personal essays, the uniting thing would be their vocation.”

“I think so.”

“Or a particular hobby, or something like that.”

“For me, that would be a great spot to start.”

“If you have this little hesitancy sometimes in a line here or there, when do you say, okay, this essay is ready to go? How do you know when it’s ready for submission?”

“That’s always the hard part. With my stuff, I have a pretty good relationship with the editor of the publication that publishes me the most for the essay stuff, so I’ll write something, and I’ll work on it hard for a couple of days, put it away, come back to it, go over it in another few days. The whole thing will probably take me a week or a week-and-a-half, and then I send it to see if there’s interest. Then, the editor will say, ‘Okay, we can get behind this,’ maybe, ‘Shorten and work on this.’ Usually, it’s cut the word count. I don’t obsess over it too much for the personal essay. It’s a fishing magazine when it comes down to it.”

“For essays, what do you look for in a literary journal before you submit material?”

“Not to be super mercenary and commercial, but a large factor is I do try to make money doing this these days. And so that takes a lot of publications right off the table. Outside of that, maybe a publication that has published writers that I admire in the past. If people I like and writers I admire publish in X-Journal, even if they don’t pay that well, I’m like, ‘Okay, well, people I like are in here.’ Then I’ll give it a shot. Also, if people ask me. I’m a sucker for that. If someone solicits something from me, if I have something, chances are I’ll try.”

“Do you specifically try to tailor your material for different journals’ styles and themes? Or do you write it and then find the placement?”

“I think that’s more what I do. I’ve never done well trying to think about the publication first. It’s more like writing it and seeing if there’s a home for it after that.”

“I assume that you’ve probably been rejected before?”

“Oh, god.”

“Can you share your experience with rejection and how you navigate it? Some people take rejection hard.”

“That’s never good.”

“But you keep writing.”

“Oh, yeah. And you know, the one thing about getting rejected from a publication is it’s sort of impersonal. I mean, they get a lot of submissions in most places, and maybe it’s just not right for them. Those are usually easier. I did grad school, and I did a writing fellowship where it was the writing workshop sort of thing, and that is just brutal because you’re in the room with the people, and it’s not like they’re just saying, ‘No, this isn’t right for our publication.’ They’re like, ‘This story is not right for humanity,’ or ‘This is bad.’ It gets more personal. That’s much harder. Just getting an email from some editor who is like, ‘This isn’t right for us,’ it’s like, all right, fine. I’m going to send it somewhere else. Commercial rejection is much easier than criticism from pointed readers trying to help you improve it.”

“As you’ve gone through your career, what are some common mistakes you’ve made in submitting to journals that you would recommend our audience don’t do?”

“You do need to be familiar with the publication. If you’re writing something just out of line with what they publish, that’s not right.”

“Target it well.”

“And also, being aware. Maybe you have one that you like, and no one wants it, then maybe you need to go back to the drawing board on that one or start something new.”

“Do you submit cover letters with those? And if so, what makes a good one?”

“I have to say, I’ve not been a big cover letter guy. Maybe the kind of writing I do is not so much that I’m just sending things out unless I know the editor or have an email relationship with them. I should speak to that question. If you can get some personal relationship with the person who’s maybe going to buy the story, it’s more like, ‘Hey, Bob, I have this essay I think might work for your publication. I’m going to send it to you. If you have time, give it a read.’ Something straightforward and informal. I’m sure a cover letter might be more important in some people’s writing lives.”

“You were talking about the editor, Bob? What advice do you have for building a relationship with Bob and other editors?”

“I have noticed that sometimes they need some material for whatever reason. Maybe due to publication day, they have room for something they don’t have. If they reach out, I try to send them something. That is one thing. If people reach out and say, ‘Hey, we’re looking for something,’ I feel like your foot is in the door, and if you don’t take advantage of that, it’s a missed opportunity for sure. Even if you don’t think everything you have is perfectly right or all the way done, try to send them something. That’s an excellent first step.”

“You got them on the line and reel them in. Returning to your essays, what advice would you give aspiring essayists about building a sustainable career or a literary presence in writing essays?”

“Oh, man! Have a different job, maybe. Don’t quit your day job. Try to be generating. That’s always my thing. I’ve had great writing teachers in the past. When I was in grad school, and many people were concerned about getting publications and things like that, I had a great writing teacher who said, ‘If you write and are generating, and it’s good, the publications will probably come.’ Just focus on the work first and be generating, and then, things just seem to flow from that. Maybe that’s sort of simplistic or naive, but that is how I’ve tried to do it, and it’s, to some degree, worked out. Focus more on the writing and less on the publishing.”

“They made a whole movie about that sort of thing: Field of Dreams.”

“Exactly. It’s like a little bit of putting the cart before the horse. If you’re worried too much about publishing things and don’t have much in the bag that you’ve written.”

___________________

Callan Wink has been awarded fellowships by the National Endowment for the Arts and Stanford University, where he was a Wallace Stegner Fellow. His stories and essays have been published in the New Yorker, Granta, Playboy, Men’s Journal, and The Best American Short Stories. He is the author of a novel, August, and a collection of short stories, Dog Run Moon. He lives in Livingston, Montana, where he is a fly-fishing guide on the Yellowstone River. https://www.spiegelandgrau.com/beartooth

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In this interview, Nate discusses how he turned his podcast of 15 years into his new collection of short historical stories, The Memory Palace: True Short Stories of the Past, his advice for other writers, and more.

Name: Nate DiMeo
Literary agent: Richard Abate, 3Arts
Book title: The Memory Palace: True Short Stories of the Past
Publisher: Random House
Release date: November 19, 2024
Genre/category: History/Literary Essays
Previous titles: Co-Author of Pawnee: The Greatest Town in America
Elevator pitch: For 15 years in his pioneering podcast, The Memory Palace, Nate DiMeo has turned to the past to make sense of the way we live today, finding beauty and meaning in history’s dustier corners, holding things up to the light and weaving facts, keen insight, wit, and poignant observation into unforgettable tales. Now, his unique historical stories are brought to the page for the first in an enchanting collection along with gorgeous illustrations and found photographs.

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What prompted you to write this book?

There’s a particular type of reading experience I treasured as a kid that I’ve missed as an adult: There were these books I would pour over again and again—The Book of Lists, Where the Sidewalk Ends, a stack of faded paperbacks collecting old Ripley’s Believe it or Not stories—filled with short, transporting pieces, beguiling illustrations that you could get lost in for an afternoon and turn to again and again. I wanted to try to create one of those books that would bring that particular magic into adulthood, a collection of the types of stories I’ve been writing for the past 15 years for “The Memory Palace” podcast—short historical stories that tap into the tools of fiction and poetry to draw out meaning and wonder from the raw-material of the past, woven together with illustrations and artifacts and found photographs in a way that might bring back that treasured feeling. A “kid’s book” with adult concerns.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

I’ve been toting around this idea for over a decade. Since the earliest days of my podcast, I would get occasional invitations to lunch with a book editor or agent. They liked my show. They liked the writing. They liked the platform. They wondered if I had a book in me and I would pitch them a collection. They would ask me if I had a short story that I would like to go long on instead, or perhaps one of those stories that seems short, but that really explains America. In short, they longed for the next Seabiscuit or Cod or the like. And, I got it; those books are pretty great. But short is what I do. I believe in the power of short—of the brief, punchy tale, of extracting wonder from tiny things. It took me a long time to find a publisher who believed in the potential of a collection.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

I had always worried a little bit (it my hum-drum writer’s insecurity) about whether the stories from my podcast would hold up on the page. That they wouldn’t collapse without the music or my voice holding it up. So, it was heartening and kind of thrilling to see it all come together on the page. That the stories themselves did work well, but moreover, that there were whole new creative avenues to explore in collecting them—putting this one next to that one, switching the order around, pairing one or another with the perfect picture, or conjuring up some idea for an illustration and then sending DeHaan off to her drawing board and having her come back with something better than I’d even imagined.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

In my earliest conversations with Random House, they asked whether there was a way I could take people behind the scenes a bit at The Memory Palace. Was there a way to kind of pull back the curtain and discuss how I came to this story or that. Every idea we kicked around fell flat. They all felt a bit like DVD commentary to me. But eventually I hit upon trying to write a series of memoir-based stories that would use the techniques of The Memory Palace and apply them to my own life. I’d never written about myself. The biggest surprise in the writing process was finding that idea actually worked. That there was a certain power in turning my usual lens to my own past and eventually it grew into something that, in a way, feels like the heart of the book and an odd sort of key to unlocking the rest of the stories.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

Over the course of the past 15 years I have found, again and again, that it is personally useful to write these stories. That taking the time out of my life, every couple of weeks, to dive into the past and try to connect with that wonderful, peculiar, imaginative pleasure of conjuring a sense of a different time, made me feel more connected to my own time. It kind of snapped me into presence. Made me aware of the fleeting nature of time. It sounds corny, but writing these stories is about as close as I come to a spiritual practice. It makes me feel a little more centered, a little more aware, makes me look at the world with a bit more wonder, with my eyes and my heart a bit more open. I’d like readers to find a bit of the same in this book too. I want it to work like one of those beloved books you might have pulled down from your childhood bookshelf again and again: You can open it anywhere and lose yourself for a bit, change your day, and maybe see your present moment in a new way for a moment.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

I spent much too much of my life not quite understanding that the people who I admired—writers, filmmakers, musicians, artists, athletes, whomever—were real people. It took me forever (far too long) to realize that a filmmaker was simply someone who made a film; a novelist wasn’t some elevated being, they were a person who’d written a novel. If you want to be a writer, just write. If you want to be a great writer, keep writing.

The post Nate DiMeo: On the Power of Writing Short Stories appeared first on Writer's Digest.

In this interview, Lester discusses how he took bitterness and spite and turned it into something creative with his new book, Rage, the biggest surprises in the publishing process, and more.

Name: Lester Fabian Brathwaite
Literary agent: Robert Guinsler
Book title: Rage: On Being Queer, Black, Brilliant…and Completely Over It
Publisher: Tiny Reparations/Penguin Random House Nonfiction/Essays
Release date: September 10, 2024
Genre/category: Nonfiction/Essays
Elevator pitch: Rage is a darkly comedic exploration of Blackness, queerness, and the American Dream, at a time when creative anger feels like the best response to inequality.

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What prompted you to write this book?

What prompts any of us to do anything? Bitterness and spite. Having amassed years of rage from the various disappointments of life—romantic, professional, personal, socio-political, etc.—I wanted to find a way to channel that rage, to make it worthwhile and not just feel as if it were this albatross about my neck, dragging me down and breaking my phones with hurled enmity. I also wanted to prove that I was what I said I was—that is, a talented writer far more capable of what I had been doing in my career up to this point.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

I initially wrote the pitch in 2018, but there was little to no interest in it. Then the so-called Great Reckoning of 2020 happened and suddenly publishers wanted Black voices. There was a little more interest, but it wasn’t until Phoebe Robinson and her Tiny Reparations imprint reached out that I actually got a deal, and that was in the fall of 2020, shortly before I tore my ACL. A couple surgeries, a couple breakdowns, a couple lockdowns, an insurrection, and just the general upheaval of life later, and here we are.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

I never knew how many people were involved in the publishing of a book, from the proofreaders to the marketing and publicity team. A book always seemed like the purest expression of an idea one could create as an artist, or at least a writer, but while the writing is certainly a solitary act, bringing the whole book to fruition is a team effort, and I was very lucky to have such a good team behind me. It also made the whole process a little less lonely and gave me further confidence in the book and in myself.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

I realized how much I hold back when I’m writing for work—out of a need to adhere to word count or out of the fear of making a piece too much about me or too personal, or out of plain old laziness. Having never written a book before, I had to learn on the job and it was surprising, in a good way, how self-indulgent the whole process is—but it’s self-indulgent out of necessity. The deeper I went, the less room I left to be misunderstood, which is also quite gratifying.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

I hope readers will get some comfort in knowing their rage is reasonable and maybe some perspective on how to handle it, or an understanding of where it comes from. And I really just want people to have a few laughs along the way because the world is a deeply unfunny place and being able to find humor in it is, I think, the greatest gift.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

Make sure you have or develop a rich inner life. That’s the wellspring of creativity.

The post Lester Fabian Brathwaite: Rage Is Reasonable appeared first on Writer's Digest.

In this interview, Jerald discusses the surprising amount of fun he had writing his new essay collection, Magically Black and Other Essays, his advice for other writers, and more.

Name (byline): Jerald Walker
Literary agent (if one): Katherine Flynn Managing Partner, Literary Agent, CALLIGRAPH, LLC
Book title: Magically Black and Other Essays
Publisher: Amistad (HarperCollins)Essays/Creative Nonfiction
Release date: Sept. 10, 2024
Genre/category: Essays/Creative Nonfiction
Previous titles: Street Shadows: A Memoir of Race, Rebellion, and Redemption; The World in Flames: A Black Boyhood in a White Supremacist Doomsday Cult; How to Make a Slave and Other Essays
Elevator pitch: Magically Black is a collection of essays that blends personal revelation and cultural critique to create a bracing and often humorous examination of Black American life. In other words, it’s basically James Baldwin meets David Sedaris.

Bookshop | Amazon
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What prompted you to write this book?

Two things: To explore the meaning of blackness, and to offer a counter-narrative to the stereotype of Blacks as primarily helpless victims of racism’s brutal forces with no capacity to confront or to defeat them.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

Three years to write and a year to edit and revise.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

I was surprised at how smoothly the process went. I have a brilliant editor, Abby West, who understood, respected, and supported my creative and philosophical world view right from the start.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

OK, this may sound peculiar, and perhaps a little conceited, but I never thought it was possible to have as much fun writing a book as I had writing this one, especially given that I tackle some pretty weighty issues.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

I want readers to expand their definitions of blackness, to see the various ways that Black identities can be inhabited and shaped, be it through cinema, religion, or any number of cultural practices. But mostly, I want readers to see the heroism and resiliency that has always characterized the Black race.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

There are countless forces working against writers, but the writers who manage to overcome them to be successful are not always the writers with the most natural talent. They’re often the ones with the most determination. Never give up.

The post Jerald Walker: On Exploring the Meaning of Blackness appeared first on Writer's Digest.

(6 Types of Personal Essays for Writers to Try.)

Now, it’s time to share the next steps, which could result in a publication opportunity on WritersDigest.com.

Step 1: Write the Personal Essays

That’s what we’ve been doing the past week. I’ve provided seven writing prompts, and you’ve been writing personal essays based on those prompts. Step one complete!

Step 2: Revise the Personal Essays

Use the month of July to revise and tweak what you’ve written for the challenge. Maybe try combining a couple essays into one essay, or insert dialogue, description, or whatever else you wish to try. 

Step 3: Pick One Essay and Send It In

You have until July 31, 2024, at 11:59 p.m. (Atlanta, GA, time) to pick one of your personal essays (of 2,500 words or fewer) and send it to me via email at rbrewer@aimmedia.com with the subject line: 2024 Personal Essay Writing Challenge

A Few More Details

It’s really pretty simple, but here are a few more details to anticipate questions before they’re asked:

• Deadline for submitting is July 31, 2024, at 11:59 p.m. (Atlanta, GA, time)
• Email to rbrewer@aimmedia.com
• Use the subject line: 2024 Personal Essay Writing Challenge (super important, because my email inbox is always super busy)
• Submit only one personal essay for this challenge
• Personal essay can be submitted in the text of the email or as a PDF attachment, but I would prefer a Word .docx file
• You can submit a personal essay even if you did not share any writing in the comments
• Personal essay should be 2,500 words or fewer (length will not factor into the results; an amazing 100-word essay could have a better result than a 2,400-word essay that should’ve been 1,200 words)
• You are encouraged to include a title for personal essay, along with your name and contact information
• You are also encouraged to indicate which prompt(s) inspired your personal essay
• I will read the essays in August and try to choose a winning essay (and maybe highlight some finalists) before we start the next poetry challenge in November

What If I Have Additional Questions?

The best place to put questions is in the comments of this post (below). And I’ve included some advice on commenting below.

If you’re unable to do that, you can send me an email at rbrewer@aimmedia.com, but be remember that my inbox is a busy place. So again, if you’re able, commenting on each post is the best strategy (in most cases).

Note on commenting: If you wish to comment on the site, go to Disqus to create a free new account, verify your account on this site below (one-time thing), and then comment away. It’s free, easy, and the comments (for the most part) don’t require manual approval (but I’ll be checking every so often, just in case).

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