Personal essays — a form of creative nonfiction that are sometimes called “narrative essays” — are one of the most effective genres an author can use to tell a vivid and descriptive story from their life.
So, what is a personal essay? In brief, it’s an autobiographical piece that often centers around a pivotal moment in an author’s life. Perhaps the essay focuses on a stranger who forever altered their perspective, or an event that changed the trajectory of their life. Or it might zoom in on a moment that seems small or mundane, but that triggered a transformation or reflection in the author.
This genre serves as a vessel for you to tell the story of your life, enhanced with imagery, sensory details, and reflective insight. Through this blend of storytelling and introspection, personal essays transform ordinary moments into powerful narratives that resonate on a deeply human level.
Check out some of Write the World’s favorite personal essays below – then write and enter your own for our Personal Essay Competition this June!
Some of Our Favorite Essays:
Camel Ride, Los Angeles, 1986, by Porochista Khakpour
Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner
I Know What You Think Of Me, by Tim Kreider
Notes of a Native Son, by James Baldwin
Once More to the Lake, by E.B. White
Rice, by Jhumpa Lahiri
Seeing, by Annie Dillard
The Death of the Moth, by Viriginia Woolf
The Father of Heliopolis, by Pauls Toutonghi
To My One Love, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Some of Our Favorite Essayists:
Andre Aciman (Out of Egypt)
Annie Dillard (An American Childhood)
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Notes on Grief)
E.B. White (One Man’s Meat)
James Baldwin (The Fire Next Time)
Jhumpa Lahiri (In Other Words)
Joan Didion (The Year of Magical Thinking)
Michelle Zauner (Crying in H Mart)
Suleika Jaouad (Between Two Kingdoms)
Vladimir Nabokov (Speak, Memory)
