A good-humored, rambling book by a writing teacher that concentrates mainly on getting ready to write and deciding what to write about. There's next to nothing in the book about how to structure and polish a personal essay, which in my experience spells the difference between writing a blog post or a letter to one's friends and creating a publishable personal essay. I also want to say that I did not like or respect the samples of the author's work included in the book - longwinded, uninteresting, unfunny and unconvincing. A far more useful book if you're hoping to publish essays in paying magazines is "Naked, Drunk and Writing: Craft a Compelling Memoir or Personal Essay" by Adair Lara.

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