Personal Essay

In Flamboyants, George M. Johnson celebrates writers, performers, and activists from 1920s Black America whose sexualities have been obscured throughout history. Through 14 essays, Johnson reveals how American culture has been shaped by icons who are both Black and Queer–and whose stories deserve to be celebrated in their entirety.

These are just a few of the people who tell their stories in Modern Love, Revised and Updated, featuring dozens of the most memorable essays to run in The New York Times “Modern Love” column since its debut in 2004. Some of the stories are unconventional, while others hit close to home. Some reveal the way technology has changed dating forever; others explore the timeless struggles experienced by anyone who has ever searched for love.

You’ve finally finished your PA personal statement and it’s perfect! There’s just one thing to consider before hitting the “send” button — will it meet the admission team’s expectations? How will you know? CASPA guidelines are vague — “Write a brief statement expressing your motivation or desire to become a physician assistant.” School websites aren’t generally more helpful. Do they want to hear that you’ve dreamed of becoming a PA since you were five and loved your toy stethoscope? Are they interested in your volunteer work at a homeless shelter? Will it help that ...

Fifteen years ago, Robert Fulghum published a simple credo that became the phenomenal #1 New York Times bestseller All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Now, seven million copies later, Fulghum returns to the book that was embraced around the world.

I am a recovering ass. Of course, at times I still am one, but it's less often. I now recognize my “assness” more quickly, recalibrate, and take action to make amends for my poor behavior. It's important to acknowledge the truth of our mistakes without turning toward self-contempt, shame, or beating ourselves up for the harm we have caused to those we love. Yet, we must take full responsibility for our poor behavior and fully own what we have done and learn to live differently, becoming men who bring life rather than further heartache.

At six years old, Terry was told by his headteacher that he would never amount to anything. He spent the rest of his life proving that teacher wrong. At 66, Terry had lived a life full of achievements: becoming one of the UK's best-selling writers, winning the Carnegie Medal and being awarded a knighthood for services to literature. Following his untimely death from Alzheimer's disease, the mantle of completing Terry's memoir was passed to Rob Wilkins, his former assistant, friend and now head of the author's literary estate.

Finding and choosing a partner is one of the most consequential decisions we will ever make. This guide explains everything from why we have "types" and how our early lives inform our romantic decisions as adults. It sheds light on harmful and repetitive patterns and provides insight on how to break them. Drawing on in-depth analysis, How to Find Love explains our instinct for romantic self-sabotage and provides a crucial set of ideas to help us make safer, more imaginative and more effective choices in love.

What really makes love last? Does love ever work the way we say it does in movies and books and Facebook posts? Or does obsessing over those love stories hurt our real-life relationships? When her parents divorced after a 28 year marriage and her own 10-year relationship ended, those were the questions that Mandy Len Catron wanted to answer.

One of the main topics of cultural conversation during the last decade was the supposed "fertility crisis" and whether modern women could figure out a way to have it all - a successful, demanding career and the required 2.3 children - before their biological clocks stopped ticking. Now, however, conversation has turned to whether it's necessary to have it all (see Anne-Marie Slaughter) or, perhaps more controversial, whether children are really a requirement for a fulfilling life.

"A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere," wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson in Love and Friendship, a collection of essays on relationships. "Before him, I may think aloud. I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them where I can find them, but I seldom use them."

The extraordinarily evocative stories depict the generation born in a small-town America during the Depression and growing up in a world where the old sexual morality was turned around and material comforts were easily had. Yet, as these stories reflect so accurately, life was still unsettling, and Updike chronicles telling moments both joyful and painful. The texts are taken from his recent omnibus, The Early Stories, 1953-1975.

The essays in this collection are the work of a group of friends known as the Northwoods Essayists: The Write People. The name comes from a very special place where we first met each other, the Northwoods Unitarian Universalist Church in The Woodlands, Texas. The group began in 2020, and its membership has evolved over time. Our current members include Hallie Moore, Mira Dessy, Dorothy Kennedy, John Hammond, and Ann McAlpin. Our friend and fellow writer Sharon Ossowski passed away while this book was in progress. We know you’ll be delighted by her wonderful essays in this collection. Our ...

Elinor Lipman has populated her fictional universe with characters so utterly real that we feel like they're old friends. Now she shares an even more intimate world with us - her own - in essays that offer a candid, charming take on modern life. Looking back and forging ahead, she considers the subjects that matter most: childhood and condiments, long marriage and solo living, career and politics. Here you'll find the lighthearted: a celebration of four decades of All My Children, a reflection on being Jewish in heavily Irish-Catholic Lowell on St. Patrick's Day, a hilariously unflinching account of her tiptoe into online dating.

Join Leslie Means, founder of the popular website Her View From Home, as she weaves together a powerful, emotional collection of essays from women of all ages and stages. These real-life, straight-to-the-heart stories will make you laugh, cry, and nod along. No two mothers are alike. No two experiences in motherhood mirror each other. But something powerful happens when our stories come together: they speak love, worth, value, and beauty. They take the undefinable experience of motherhood and give it shape and substance and strength. They speak to us all.

✨ The journey continues—rawer, and more intimate. 📚 Following the themes explored in the Standard Edition, this Special Edition expands the original reflections with new chapters and a deeper emotional current. For readers who resonated with the original reflections on fear, pain, consumerism, addiction, confidence, purpose, and happiness, this special version offers new meditations on distractions, stress, nonconformism, early rising, the art of letting go and the sacred nature of sex—all presented in the same poetic, minimalist style that touched so many. 🕯 Blending ancient ...

SoulCollage® is a process where we create an ongoing deck of collaged 5x8 cards, each one representing some aspect of our lives and our journey. The cards are used with journaling activities, small group activities, and more, to dive into our hearts and souls. Many inner discoveries are made as the process continues. It is fun, simple, and anyone can do it! These 87 inspiring essays will lead you to a better understanding of the SoulCollage® process in relation to: creativity, your inner voices, working with shadow, archetypes, seasons/holidays, lessons from television, difficult times, ...

Learn the secrets to a success college application and how to get accepted into your top choice dream school! This book provides insight from experts in the college admissions process at the most prestigious and selective colleges and universities. Maybe you’re just starting your college application prep, maybe you're a concerned parent hoping to steer your child to the Ivy League, or maybe you're simply a high school freshman hoping to set yourself on the path to educational greatness -whatever your reasons for picking up this book, we’re thrilled to take this ride together. Let’s ...

Finally, find answers to all of your questions about the dreaded and confusing college application essay in one handy guide, written by the leading essay expert in the college admissions industry, Janine Robinson. For the last decade, Janine has helped students, families, teachers and college consultants from all over the world learn the tricks to crafting narrative style essays that help land students in their dream schools. Her wildly popular blog, Essay Hell, has had more than 4 million visitors to date. When it comes to the intimidating world of college application essays, Janine ...

Acres of Diamonds - essay, written by Russell Herman Conwell (February 15, 1843 – December 6, 1925) was an American Baptist minister, orator, philanthropist, lawyer, and writer. The original inspiration for Acres of Diamonds, his most famous essay, occurred in 1869 when Conwell was traveling in the Middle East. The work began as a speech, "at first given," wrote Conwell in 1913, "before a reunion of my old comrades of the Forty-sixth Massachusetts Regiment, which served in the Civil War and in which I was captain."

I’m not a musician. Not that I haven’t tried. My brain just doesn’t seem to be wired for it. I’m not a student of music either, at least not in the academic sense. I don’t work in music, but I do listen to music while I work. And I’m definitely not a music nerd. By that I mean I don’t memorize who’s in what band or who produced whatever album. The point I’m trying to make is, there’s no good reason why I should be writing a book about my personal music history, other than the fact that music is everything to me. Music has a hold on so many of us. It comforts us. It pumps...