“Art of the Personal Essay”

Instructor: Magazine Editor Paula Derrow 

Tuesday, July 24, 7 to 9:30 p.m.

Price: $30, limit 20 students

At the heart of every personal essay is a memory - and any memory can be the starting point for a personal essay or a memoir. The trick is learning how to access your memories, then using them as a jumping off point for something larger.

In this three-hour workshop taught by Paula Derrow, SELF magazine’s articles director and editor of the Self Expression column, we’ll use writing prompts to spur your memory. We’ll warm up your writing muscles and get you thinking about details, sights, sounds and smells that you may not have thought of in a long time. 

We will then read each other’s results and discuss the elements that make for a compelling personal essay. Besides in-class writing, we will also talk about the basics of pitching personal essays, the difference between personal essay and a blog or diary, and various techniques that make effective personal writing.

Paula Derrow

Paula Derrow is the articles director of SELF magazine, where she edits the "Self Expression" column, as well as investigative, health, general-interest and psychology features. She has more than 20 years of editing and writing experience at magazines and web sites including Glamour, American Health, Harper's Bazaar, The New Yorker, and Lifetime Television for Women. Her writing has also appeared in the New York Times' Modern Love column. She is the editor of “Behind the Bedroom Door: Getting It, Giving It, Loving It, Missing It,” an anthology of essays by women about sex in real life.