20 of my favorite personal essays I've written
I bare it all on the page (or at least, make it look like I have)
This is my newsletter about my life, interests, and work, including my books, writing, and classes. To show your support consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. For $5/month or $50/year, paid subscribers get access to my full archives. I hope you’ll also check out my Substack personal essay publication Open Secrets, which publishes an original essay every week.
One of the paradoxes of personal essays is that the author seems like they’re sharing every intimate detail about their lives relevant to the topic at hand. They’re taking readers into their minds and hearts and bedrooms and bathrooms and relationships. They’re confessing to misdeeds and flaws, often sharing things they haven’t told anyone (or very few people) in their private lives. The reader feels like they’re privvy to something special, and likely, they probably are.
Yet, of course, instead of literally sharing everything they were doing and thinking and feeling, essayists are always making choices about what to include and exclude, about how far to let the reader in, and where to shut that door and draw a little space around themself for privacy. It’s a line I walk every time I write an essay, and when I wrote my sex columns for The Village Voice and Philadelphia City Paper and The Frisky, and when I wrote about my dad’s alcoholism for Parade magazine when I was in college, and even now, when I post on social media. Because whereas my life has been pretty much an open book for over 30 years, since I was a teenager, that’s not the case for my partner, my family members, or many of my friends. I take their privacy seriously, while also being a fierce advocate for my own right to write what’s in my heart and mind.
I’m thinking about all of these issues as I prepare to launch my personal essay publication and Substack newsletter, Open Secrets. We launch Monday, April 3, and I’m so proud and excited to bring you a brand new essay every week, through at least September 2023 (I will run it indefinitely if I get enough paying subscribers to pay authors; I pay $100/essay on acceptance). I hope you’ll subscribe; there are free and paid options.
So today I’m going to share 20 of my favorite personal essays I’ve written. I’ve included links save for two that are offline because The Kernel and Lemondrop are no longer publishing; I’ll share them in full in my newsletter soon.
It’s been a doozy of a week and it’s only Wednesday, so I’m just sharing the links and snippets, but soon I’ll be detailing the backstory and inspiration for some of these essays and tips about how I sold them, for paying subscribers. So without further ado, 20 of my favorite personal essays about everything from hoarding to being an introvert to dating and finances and kink and jealousy and more.
Salon, “I’m a sex writer with a secret shame -- hoarding”
HuffPost Personal, “Want To Know Why People Stockpile Toilet Paper? I'm A Hoarder And I Have A Few Ideas.”
Refinery29, “The Beauty Of Not Sleeping Together” - my essay on sleeping in separate bedrooms
Washington Post, “I love my boyfriend, but I never want to get married”
SELF, “I Suddenly Stopped Being Kinky and I’m Not Sure Why”
Shondaland, “Why I Turned Down a Hoarding Reality Show”
The Frisky, “Sex with a Top Chef”
The Girlfriend, “I Became An Introvert In My 40s”
Jezebel, “Loving My Body—Kinda, Sorta, Sometimes”
The Independent, “Kim and Kanye’s kids deserve better than this”
Business Insider, “After a friend my age died on my birthday, I bought life insurance — and even though my family said I shouldn't, I don't regret it”
Redbook, “Why My Boyfriend of 5 Years and I Only Have 5 Photos of the Two of Us Together”
The Goods, “The best $2,000 I ever spent: many, many rounds of bingo”
YouBeauty, “What I’ve Learned About Size and Body Image by Dating a Fat Man”
TueNight, “What I Learned From My Stalker”
BuzzFeed, “Why I’m Jealous of My Friend’s Unplanned Pregnancy”
The San Francisco Chronicle, "Nurturing Is Part of Fatherhood" (my very first essay published when I was 19)
The Toast, “You Can Have Too Many Books”
The Kernel, “I'm addicted to Google News Alerts”
Here’s the opening few paragraphs:
“Your Google alert on Paris Hilton just went off,” my boyfriend recently sneered at me, handing me my iPhone with disgust.
His reaction wasn’t so much about my following a star whose gossip currency has long since depreciated. He would have had the same reaction if the alert had been for “Carrie Brownstein,” “porn star,” “schadenfreude,” or “frosting”—all of which I have alerts for, along with 9,995 others. I would have even more, but Google only allows users a maximum of 10,000 alerts. No topic is too big (sex), too small (Serenity Prayer) or too odd (high fructose corn syrup) to pique my interest.
His repulsion was centered around the fact that in any given hour, I will likely receive at least a handful of such emails, which light up my phone in a way that would make a casual bystander think I’m popular. I’m not, but my inbox certainly is. In the last half hour, from 9 to 10 pm on a Thursday evening, I’ve received 26 alerts. I’ve learned such random factoids as: There’s a Bob’s Burgers-themed animated Sleater-Kinney video, Kelly Brook’s cleavage was “hard to miss,” and Virgin America had a good fourth quarter. None of them were of any particular urgency or relevance to my life (though the video amused me), but I still welcomed the information, because I don’t believe one can ever possess, in a literal sense, “too much” information.
Lemondrop, “Why I Got the Word ‘Open’ Tattooed On My Back”
Here’s the opening:
I'd always thought that I wasn't a tattoo person. There wasn't a single image I felt I had to have on my body. But when my friend Sheela and a bunch of other cool ladies I know made plans to get tattoos while we were all in Chicago, I decided I wanted in on the action.
I still couldn't come up with an image that worked for me, until I realized that I'm not a visual person so much as a word person. As a writer, words are what matter most to me; I stay up late at night reading, not watching TV. I remember quotes and song lyrics more than I remember movie scenes.
Once I decided I wanted a word, the one that came to mind was "open." I tend to be extremely pessimistic, and when something goes wrong in my life, instead of trying to fix it or make it better, I assume there's something wrong with me and that's why the problem is occurring.
This is especially the case with relationships. If someone breaks up with me, as happened in May, or just decides to stop talking to me altogether, I wonder not only what I did to cause them to not want me anymore, but I assume that other people I might date will also treat me that way. It's a vicious cycle, and one I'd like to break.
__________________________________________________________________________
Want to learn how to write and sell your own personal essays? Join me for my next Essay Writing 101 Zoom class, which is limited to 20 people. We will discuss what makes a powerful personal essay, write to prompts for six different types of essays and analyze examples of them, and cover how to submit essays to editors and how much you can earn, typically about $100 (what I pay for Open Secrets) to $1,000.
Essay Writing 101 class registrants also receive access to my private list of 50+ current essay markets with links to writing guidelines and editors to submit to, plus my commentary and advice on how to better your chances and have early and extended access to submitting essays to Open Secrets. After class, Essay Writing 101 alumni will receive an invitation to a private Slack channel where you can continue the conversations, share writing questions and news, and form a community with fellow essay writers. I will also share updates in the Slack channel about newly published essays to study and essay writing news.
Have questions about the class? Comment here or email me at mail at rachelkramerbussel.com with “Essay class” in the subject line and I’ll get back to you ASAP.
What are students saying about my Essay Writing 101 class?
Praise for Essay Writing 101:
“If you’re thinking about writing essays, Rachel Kramer Bussel’s essay class will give you the courage, the confidence and the know-how to start pitching. She brings a wealth of knowledge, resources and tips in a compact two-hour session, filled with prompts to start the writing process. Highly recommended.” — Suzanne Jefferies
“I have attended many creative nonfiction and essay writing workshops since 2020, and the one I took with Rachel Kramer Bussel is above and beyond the best I have been to. During the session, she offered personalized responses that carefully considered each of her students as serious writers and gave me the confidence to get even more stuff out into the world.
She balanced both the complexities of publishing with the intricacies of craft. The two-hour workshop helped us create new essays, edit ones in the works and send them to the world. Rachel is also a working writer who knows the ins and out of the industry, and her insight is unique, thoughtful, practical, and inspiring. So if you want to empower your words on the page, you better attend the next one.” — Gretchen Comcowich
“Here’s what I especially appreciated about the class: your coaching style that is listening for all the clues of what folks are saying and your uncanny ability to speak directly into anyone’s personal essay ideas. You had suggestions for publications, for other essays or pubs to read that were similarly themed, the suggestion of placement associated with holidays or dates.” — Teri McCormick Hinton
“Rachel shares terrific information and ideas with writers in her essay workshop. Her prompts lead in unexpected directions, and her thoughtful feedback provides new ways to structure and publish material. This workshop is highly recommended for both novice and experienced essayists.” — Stella Fosse, author of Aphrodite’s Pen: The Power of Writing Erotica after Midlife
“Rachel Kramer Bussel’s Essay Writing 101 packs a lot of valuable information into a relatively short class! Thanks to thought-provoking writing prompts, insightful feedback from Rachel, a wealth of resources, and an inspiring group dynamic, I left this workshop with several potential topics and angles for essays and ideas about where I could pitch them. I feel more confident than ever to start submitting!” — Angie Reiber
“I took Rachel’s Essay Writing class to explore my creative side that had been long asleep. The class not only awoke my desire to write, but it opened up so many parts of my own personal story that I didn’t know were hidden there! Rachel is so supportive in her guidance and so generous with tips, structure and prompts. I highly recommend working with Rachel!” — Ati Egas
“Both of Rachel’s Erotic Writing and Essay Writing 101 classes were incredibly inspiring, informative, helpful and encouraging. The writing prompts given were very unique and fun, firing a creative writing process that has continued well after class. Rachel was incredibly supportive when students read aloud, giving excellent ideas, feedback and asked great questions to promote the process. After class, Rachel’s emails have been full of incredibly useful information on publishing, insight and additional information that has been immensely helpful.” — Candice Leigh
It's great to see someone who takes the craft of personal essay writing seriously and thinks about the balance between sharing personal stories and respecting the privacy of loved ones. I look forward to reading your upcoming essays and learning more about your writing process. Best of luck with your new venture!