Personal Essay: Pathway to Clarity, Persuasion and Power
What’s the best way to air your personal views? First get clear on what they are, then write a personal essay! Write an essay? you ask. Me, write an essay? Surely you joke! I get that. I’ve spent most of my life thinking the same thing. Like most people, I always thought of essays as noxious English class assignments that fed dry toast to brains. That was before personal essay and creative nonfiction came of age. Now I recognize essays as both a tool for getting my thoughts clear and orderly, and also a dimension of story — stories explaining what we think and believe and why. Stories exploring Truth. They interlace nicely with stories about experiences. Most stories are hybrids, with elements of both. Well-written personal essays sizzle with energy and sometimes humor. They make you think. I know this, because I’ve read a pile of them lately. The ones that spurred this post are blog posts by Kristen Lamb. Two in particular are so powerful I hope they go viral. Both are calls to acti...