Writers on the Rise

By Kristin Bair O’Keeffe

Today you’re looking online for a market where you can submit that kinda longish essay you wrote about your uncle’s factory accident-the one that doesn’t quite fit the submission guidelines of any of the magazines to which you usually submit.

You read and nod, read and nod.

Then you catch sight of the online search entry about Phillip Lopate’s compilation, The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present and you stop. “Hhhhmmm,” you say. You click on it.

Seconds later, you’re at the amazon.com page that describes (and yes, sells) the anthology. Words like excellent and essay authority and smorgasbord are splashed all over the screen.

Smorgasbord?

Whoo-hoo! You love smorgasbords! You order the book.

A few days later (or a few weeks, if you happen to live in China and have to wait obscenely long periods of time for books to be delivered), you’re sprawled on your couch practically eating Lopate’s collection. You read Natalia Ginzburg’s “He and I” and Scott Russell Sanders’ “Under the Influence.” You’re wowed, floored, speechless, and hungry for more.

You read Plutarch’s “Consolation to His Wife,” which makes you sob, even though Plutarch died way back in 125 A.D.

After wiping away the tears, you try to figure out what’s different about these essays than the ones you’ve been writing and submitting to magazines and newspapers over the past few months.

The most obvious difference? They’re much longer. Heck, “Under the Influence” goes on for almost 12 pages.

You get excited, and though you wouldn’t dare to compare your essay to Plutarch’s (I mean, come on, he was Plutarch!), you do realize that the essay you wrote about your uncle’s accident fits into the same genre-the literary personal essay (also known in the writing world as creative nonfiction).

The more subtle differences? These essays don’t hurry the reader to a conclusion. They wander and purposefully meander. They even take tangents that sometimes veer way, WAY off the path.

“Ah,” you say, “these essays have room to breathe.”

Of course, after a bit more research, you realize two things:

1.    the biggest market for this type of essay is literary magazines (magazines like The Cimarron Review and Creative Nonfiction)
2.    most literary magazines pay not in dollars, but in copies of the magazine

Now off on your own tangent, you wonder if the local grocery store will let you barter a copy of The Gettysburg Review for a bag of apples and a jug of detergent.

Probably not, but publishing in a literary magazine looks great on your writer resume and will catch the eye of an agent when it’s time to sell your collection of essays.

So get out that essay about your uncle and get busy. It’s time to submit!

(Warning: Now don’t go nuts on me, thinking that you can write an essay that’s 900,230 words and submit it to any literary magazine out there. Like commercial magazines, literary magazines have guidelines. Before submitting, read them!)

Good luck!

Personal Essay Marketplace: If you’re interested in submitting to a literary magazine, check out New Pages. It gives links and information for dozens and dozens of spectacular literary magazines-online and print.

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Kristin Bair O’Keeffe moved to Shanghai, China, in April 2006 and has been writing about this incredible country ever since. Her blog, “Shanghai Adventures of a Trailing Spouse,” chronicles her adventures (and misadventures) in Shanghai and garners the attention of readers all around the world. Her essays about the China experience can be found in The Baltimore Review and To Shanghai With Love (forthcoming). As a respected writing instructor, she has taught hundreds of writers over the past fourteen years and is currently teaching both fiction and nonfiction writing in Shanghai.

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By Kristin Bair O’Keeffe

You’ve heard this before, right? When you’re writing a personal essay, use fiction techniques to make it lively and interesting. But what the heck does that really mean?

Well, remember that dinner you had last week with your best friend Jennifer? The one at that amazing new Italian restaurant on the corner with red leather booths and silky, white lanterns? You know-the one where you had that mouth-watering pumpkin gnocchi and Jennifer had, had, well, whatever it was, she adored it because she slapped her hand on the table and yelped over and over again in a voice that was way too loud for the hushed atmosphere, “God, I’m going to eat here every night from now on. Every single night. They’re going to have to kick me out to get rid of me”?

Ah, it’s coming back to you now, isn’t it?

Well, would you even consider writing a personal essay about that dinner without including the red leather booths, the silky, white lanterns, the mouth-watering pumpkin gnocchi, the slapping of the hand, or the fact that every single time you and Jennifer eat at a new restaurant-any new restaurant-she always says the same thing in the same too-loud voice?

Nope, you wouldn’t.

Why not?

Because the story would be flat, boring, and completely uninteresting-to your listener, your reader or your potential editor. It would go something like this:

There is a new Italian restaurant on the corner. There are booths and lanterns. I ate there with my friend last week. I liked my food. So did my friend.

“Aahhhh! Aahhhh!” cries your potential editor (followed by sounds of said editor thunking her head against a wall).

Listen up, writers! You’ve got to entertain your readers. You’ve got to keep them interested. A good hook is great, but if you don’t follow it up with something equally compelling, you’ll lose your readers as fast as you can say, “I remember now! Jennifer had the cod!”

So, yes, fiction techniques will help you do this. When you sit down to write your personal essay, utilize the same techniques you would if writing a novel or a short story:

• develop your characters
• let those characters speak to one another — dialogue, dialogue, dialogue
• create a sense of place
• include gestures
• use objects to move your story forward (Oh, yeah, the salt shaker fell on the floor when Jennifer slapped the table and everyone in the place turned to stare.)

Try it! It’s much more fun-for your reader, your editor and you.

Personal Essay Marketplace: Like to write with your funny bone? Try your hand at Smithsonian Magazine’s “The Last Page.” Check out the submission guidelines for this 550-700 word essay market at Smithsonian Magazine.

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Kristin Bair O’Keeffe moved to Shanghai, China, in April 2006 and has been writing about this incredible country ever since. Her blog, “Shanghai Adventures of a Trailing Spouse,” chronicles her adventures (and misadventures) in Shanghai and garners the attention of readers all around the world. Her essays about the China experience can be found in The Baltimore Review and To Shanghai With Love (forthcoming). As a respected writing instructor, she has taught hundreds of writers over the past fourteen years and is currently teaching both fiction and nonfiction writing in Shanghai.

By Kristin Bair O’Keeffe

hook (v.) - to seize or make fast as if by a hook

The truth is, when you write an essay, you’ve got a single sentence to hook-to seize and make fast-your potential reader.

Not a paragraph. Not an entire essay. Not even, in most cases, two sentences.

Like it or not, one sentence.

Think of it this way.

You’re a writer in Shanghai, and your potential reader in Omaha, Nebraska, is hungry and late for a meeting with her boss. She needs to eat lunch and hightail it to the 3rd floor where her boss is anxiously tapping her foot.

Luckily, this potential reader also wants to read. She wants to feel connected. She wants YOU to seize and make fast her attention in Sentence #1 so profoundly that she forgets the growling pangs in her stomach and reschedules the meeting with her boss.

(Why else would she have opened the magazine in which your essay is published in the first place instead of wolfing down a candy bar on her way to the meeting?)

This potential reader is looking for something. Something that you, the hook-savvy writer, can give.

So how do you do it? How do you hook her? How do you give her what she needs to move from potential reader to reader?

Well, there’s more than one way to write a compelling hook. Here are six good ones!

1. Start with a personal anecdote.
“I kneel in the muskeg, bucket between my legs, cushion of sphagnum moss crimson beneath my rubber boots.”
(from Aleria Jensen’s “Gathering Berries,” Orion Magazine, September/October 2007)

2. Inform your reader.
“In 1993, life began to change for the young women of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.”
(from Teresa Rodriguez’s “Why Speak Out?” Skirt! Magazine, February 200

3. Appeal to a universal experience.
“It is not easy to love people when they’re lovable. It’s harder when they’re not.” (Yep, I know. This author uses two sentences here to hook readers. But the two are a team. See how they work together?)
(from Patti Digh’s “Loving Unlovable People,” Skirt! Magazine, February 200

4. Make your reader go, “Huh?” or “Really?” or “You’ve got to be kidding!”
“‘Honey, could you please bring me the tissues out of my bag?’ I called from the bathroom in the rundown backpackers’ hostel.”
(from Nicole McClelland’s “Sitting Pretty,” Orion magazine, November/December 2006)

5. Offer a how-to tip.
“First, fall apart.”
(from Kelly Love Johnson’s “How to Fall Out of Love,” Skirt! Magazine, February 200

6. Start with a quote.
“IN THE BEGINNING God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was formless and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”
(from Roger Pinckney’s “The Bare Boughs of Winter Trees,” Orion magazine, January/February 2007)

So what are you waiting for? Pull out that essay you’ve been tinkering with and write a hook that sings.

Personal Essay Marketplace: Editors at Orion magazine are looking for “thoughtful submissions concerning the collision of nature and culture, the commingling of people and place.” Sound like something you might write? If so, check out the submission guidelines and get started.

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Kristin Bair O’Keeffe moved to Shanghai, China, in April 2006 and has been writing about this incredible country ever since. Her blog, “Shanghai Adventures of a Trailing Spouse,” chronicles her adventures (and misadventures) in Shanghai and garners the attention of readers all around the world. Her essays about the China experience can be found in The Baltimore Review and To Shanghai With Love (forthcoming). As a respected writing instructor, she has taught hundreds of writers over the past fourteen years and is currently teaching both fiction and nonfiction writing in Shanghai.

Congratulations! You’ve had one of those marvelous “Ah, Ha!” moments that I wrote about in January and now you have a compelling story about which you want to write a personal essay. But what do you do next? Write a query letter or write the essay? Submit to one magazine or your top ten favorites? Write 1,000 words or 3,500 words? Send it via email? Snail mail? Hand deliver it with a dozen roses and a pint of strawberry ice cream?

Great questions. Luckily most publications are happy to provide you with answers in the form of Writer Guidelines (also referred to as Submission Guidelines or Contributor Guidelines). These are available at publication websites or by request.

Once you’ve got that golden idea for an essay, choose the publication to which you want to submit and track down the Writer Guidelines. Depending on the publication, this can be a simple or not-so-simple task. Skirt!, for example, makes it easy on writers by having a link for Contributor Guidelines on the main page of its website, while Smithsonian magazine makes us work a bit harder.

(Hint: If a link isn’t obvious, click on “Contact Us” or “About.” Writer Guidelines are often accessed through these links.)

Once you find the Writer Guidelines for a publication, you’ll discover the answers to most, if not all, of your questions: maximum and minimum word counts, editor’s preferences, how to submit, to whom to submit, payment information, response times, and lots more. It’s important to know that every publication’s guidelines are different, even if they share subject matter. You can’t assume that if you’ve read the guidelines for World Hum that you now know how to write for and submit to every travel magazine in the industry. They’re all different!

And while you could write your essay before you figure out to which publication you want to submit and before you read that publication’s Writer Guidelines, honestly, it’s a big, fat waste of time.

Let’s say you write your essay without researching Writer Guidelines first, but the whole time you’re writing, you’re thinking, “Hot diggity, this is perfect for The Christian Science Monitor’s “Home Forum.” So you write. You polish. You get two friends to read your essay and make suggestions. You polish again. And in the end, your beautiful, perfectly executed personal essay turns out to be 1,758 words.

Then you read the Contributors Guidelines for the “Home Forum” section of The Christian Science Monitor and guess what? Essays for this section are to be between 300-900 words. That’s 858 fewer words than you’ve written. That’s nearly half your essay.

So you hop around your office, curse yourself, and spend the next two days cutting your essay down to 900 words. This is valuable time you could have spent working on your next “Ah, Ha” moment or even, your next essay.

My advice? Do the research, read the Writer Guidelines, and enjoy the process!

Personal Essay Marketplace: Want to write about your writing experience? Check out ByLine Magazine.

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Kristin Bair O’Keeffe moved to Shanghai, China, in April 2006 and has been writing about this incredible country ever since. Her blog, “Shanghai Adventures of a Trailing Spouse,” chronicles her adventures (and misadventures) in Shanghai and garners the attention of readers all around the world. Her essays about the China experience can be found in The Baltimore Review and To Shanghai With Love (forthcoming). As a respected writing instructor, she has taught hundreds of writers over the past fourteen years and is currently teaching both fiction and nonfiction writing in Shanghai.

By Kristin Bair O’Keeffe

This year, Chinese New Year falls on February 7, and according to the Chinese zodiac, 2008 is the Year of the Rat. (I know, I know, the rat? But believe it or not, there are some pretty cute little rodents being sold in Shanghai. Many are stuffed. Some are carved. Others are gilded in gold. Thankfully, none are alive—at least as far as I’ve seen.)

Luckily for us writers, the Rat symbolizes hard work and renewal. (It is, after all, the first sign in the Chinese 12-animal zodiac cycle.) This year is a great time for thinking and planning, digging in and getting the work done. Opportunities abound!

So how do you get the work done when writing a personal essay? One thing you must do is to offer a universal truth.

Huh?

Yep, every good personal essay offers a universal truth. Remember when your elementary school teacher told you to write down the main idea of a passage? Well, a universal truth is a similar concept, with a little more soul. It’s the feeling readers are left with that makes them say, “Mmmm hhhhmmm, I know exactly what you mean.”

For example, in the September 2007 issue of Food & Wine, four writers share travel memories in a collection of short personal essays called “Passages to Italy.” Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, is one of them. In her fewer-than-500-word essay, she plunges us into a moment in Italy in which she is eating artichokes, suffering sidewalk rage, and learning a lesson about slowing down and enjoying the ride.

Okay, so what’s the universal truth?

No, it’s not about eating artichokes. Try again.

Got it! Slowing down and enjoying the ride. Something we all need to do a little more of.

Bingo!

A few years ago, I wrote a personal essay about catching my first fish (titled, “My First Fish”) that was published in The Larcom Review. And yes, it was all about my private, personal fishing experience—the rust-colored woolly bugger with which I caught the fish, the fact that really I should have stopped fishing because it was almost dark and I had a long walk back to the truck, the very special rock on which I was standing when I caught him, and so on. It was a very personal story, BUT it also offered two universal truths, to which all (or hopefully most) readers could relate: 1) good things take time, and 2) humans need to nurture their deep connection to nature.

In other words, in a personal essay, you tell YOUR story, but readers also get a truth that speaks to their lives as well. If you’re just telling a story for the sake of telling a story, it’s probably not a good choice for a personal essay. Be sure you choose your subject matter carefully and thoughtfully.

Get it?

Good.

Now pull out that personal essay you’ve been working on, give yourself a pat on the back for having written a good story, reread it and then ask yourself, “What’s the universal truth?”

Marketplace: Skirt! publishes 8-14 personal essays every month. Wow, so many opportunities to place your essay! Guidelines are available at “About Us.”

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Kristin Bair O’Keeffe moved to Shanghai, China, in April 2006 and has been writing about this incredible country ever since. Her blog, “Shanghai Adventures of a Trailing Spouse,” chronicles her adventures (and misadventures) in Shanghai and garners the attention of readers all around the world. Her essays about the China experience can be found in The Baltimore Review and To Shanghai With Love (forthcoming). As a respected writing instructor, she has taught hundreds of writers over the past fourteen years and is currently teaching both fiction and nonfiction writing in Shanghai.

Because I’m a nut for the personal essay, I’ve decided that for me (and for this column), 2008 is The Year of the Personal Essay.

The personal essay is about life your life. Those moments of self-discovery that make you laugh or cry or shake your head or hop up and down on one foot. The ones in which you feel completely alone. The ones that remind you how connected we all are. The ones that make you say, “Ah, ha!”

You know, THOSE moments.

Like the one I experienced this summer when I walked into a coffee shop in Shanghai, organized my writing gear on the table in front of me, folded my feet cross-legged on the chair and immediately found myself under attack by a very angry German woman.

Why?

Because I put my feet on the chair.

For nearly an hour, this woman ate, ranted at me (in English and German), complained about me to her partner (in English and German) and stared viciously at my feet (which I refused, out of principle and a bit of Croatian stubbornness, to remove from the chair).

As a human being, I was hurt and bewildered by the attack, but as a writer of personal essays, I said, “Ah, ha!” By the time the woman stuffed the last bit of salad into her mouth, I was already writing a blog entry about the encounter. And because many of my blog entries turn into longer pieces, by the time I finished typing, it was a full-blown essay called “The Rabid German” (due out in the Winter 2007 issue of The Baltimore Review.

If I wasn’t such a nut for the personal essay, this incident with the German might have simply passed into history (or even worse, developed into fisticuffs); but I am, and as I move through life, I’m constantly aware of “personal essay moments” as they happen. This is a skill you develop over time. The more personal essays you write (and sell), the more tuned in you are to potential subjects.

So, readers, get your radar up and running! For the next month I want you to move through life being aware of the moments that will make lively personal essays-the ah, ha moments! Write them down as they happen. Make a list.

And oh, yeah, have a very Happy New Year!

Personal Essay Marketplace: The Christian Science Monitor is a great market for personal essays. Check out the guidelines for “The Home Forum.”
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Kristin Bair O’Keeffe moved to Shanghai, China, in April 2006 and has been writing about this incredible country ever since. Her blog, “Shanghai Adventures of a Trailing Spouse,” chronicles her adventures (and misadventures) in Shanghai and garners the attention of readers all around the world. Her essays about the China experience can be found in The Baltimore Review and To Shanghai With Love (forthcoming). As a respected writing instructor, she has taught hundreds of writers over the past fourteen years and is currently teaching both fiction and nonfiction writing in Shanghai.