I've been writing since I was a teenager, in diaries, journals, letters, for publication and then in 2005, in this blog. I went to a Writer's Retreat at Pilgrim Firs the weekend of November 5 and finally found out what I've been doing all these years. I've been writing personal essays. I was at our retreat teacher's website (Sheila Bender) just now and found this quote.
"At the core of the personal essay," Philip Lopate writes, "is the supposition that there is a certain unity to human experience." As essayists, in talking about ourselves, we are in some way talking about everyone. It is our experience that matters and our interest in sharing it that moves others. Orhan Pamuk, 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, put it this way in his acceptance speech, "All true literature rises form this childish, hopeful certainty that we resemble one another".
I guess that's been my impulse--to write about my experience and/or thoughts and hope you can relate, or that something rings a bell with you, makes you remember or think. According to some of the comments I've gotten through this blog, it appears to work sometimes.
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