{SoulCircle} Essay Writing Resources

Here you can find some useful resources to help you write stronger, more compelling personal essays. This is just a handful of the many resources out there. I have kept the list short to avoid overwhelm! I share some additional references in our Summer of Substack Essay Festival audios.

Of course one of the best ways to get better is to write more, and pay attention to your own work, but reading other work can also really help you understand what YOU love.

Books about essay writing

• The Art of the Personal Essay by Phillip Lopate

• Essayism by Brian Dillon

Books of essays

• Anything from the publisher Fitzcarraldo Editions, including Fifty Sounds by Polly Barton, The Years by Annie Ernaux, Intervals by Marianne Brooker.

• The Daunt Books series of essay collections around different themes, with essays from many contributors - including By the River | In the Garden | At the Pond | In the Kitchen | Freewheeling | Dog Hearted

Online publications featuring essays

The Paris Review | The New Yorker | AGNI | Narrative Magazine | Winter Papers | The Stinging Fly | Granta | Cleaver Magazine | Hippocampus | Brevity

Substack

And of course the whole of Substack is a resource for fine essays - feel free to share links to some of your favourites in the comments, so we can discover them.

The Summer of Substack Essay Festival takes place inside SoulCircle, my private writing community here on Substack. If you aren’t yet a member but would like to participate, you can find out more here, or join here (choose Monthly to try it out or Annual to get a lovely discount).