Personal essays are back — and authors are sick of writing them

Last month, two personal essays published in New York Magazine's The Cut made their rounds on the internet. One essay was titled, "Should I Leave My Husband? The Lure of Divorce" and the other one, "How I Fell for an Amazon Scam Call and Handed Over $50,000"

The former was written by Emily Gould, a novelist and a writer for New York Magazine. The latter was written by Charlotte Cowles, The Cut's financial-advice columnist. People online had a lot of thoughts about these two essays, and it harkened back to an era of the internet when personal essays went viral with a frequency writers strive for these days.

Last Tuesday, writer Tajja Isen published a piece in Vulture titled "Do I Really Need to Op-Ed to Sell Books?" where she reveals that personal essays aren't just things pitched by freelance writers, it's often a requirement from book publishers during prepublication. Authors are encouraged to write an op-ed about a theme that appears in their forthcoming book, to attract new readers and to sell more books. 

To talk more about the expectation for authors to write personal essays and why publishers, media sites and readers alike have become enamoured with them, Isen and fellow writer Vivek Shraya joins host Elamin Abdelmahmoud on Commotion.  

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, plus a review of the movie Lapaataa Ladies, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast on your favourite podcast player.

LISTEN | Today's episode on YouTube:

Elamin: Vivek, when the piece by Tajja went up, you replied in all caps saying "THANK YOU FOR SAYING THE THING." What was it about Tajja's piece that resonated with you so much?

Vivek: I've written a memoir. It's called I'm Afraid of Men. There's a lot to like. It's personal exploration. And then I'm asked, "Have you thought about writing an op-ed on masculinity? 

I've written the book. I also got into the fiction world. A few years ago I published a book called The Subtweet, and it's about social media and whatnot. And it was like all about an op-ed on social media. And as an artist I'm constantly grappling with what is the best medium for a conversation. And if I thought that a personal essay was the best medium, that would have been the medium I would have chosen instead of a 300 page novel in a fictional world. And I think the other thing that's a bit frustrating, too, is that things get dangled. [Publications will say]
"If you write this op-ed, maybe we'll give you the cover story." And so I say, "Okay, fine, I will write this thing that I don't really want to write." And then of course the cover doesn't happen. And you haven't been paid for this op-ed because we're all doing you a favour by printing this article to publicise your book. And it just doesn't feel great.

Elamin: At the core of this, though, is a dynamic that I'm really interested in, which is that it seems to me the reason why publishers ask so many writers to do this, is that readers are attracted to this, Tajja. The dynamic when a writer becomes the face of an issue or becomes the entry point into an issue, why do you think readers are so drawn to this particular dynamic? 

Tajja: I think it's when it comes to a big and sometimes messy issue, it can be very compelling to have a charismatic voice cut through the noise and help you figure out how to think. 

When it's the kind of viral personal essay that you're talking about, it's juicy, right? Everybody loves it. Who doesn't love a scam story? So I agree, there's an appeal from the reader's perspective, even if that appeal doesn't always translate into a book sale, which I think the expectation might be.

Elamin: I think the internet presents us with virality as the key mode for you to be present. Vivek, what do you make of the pressures of virality on an artist? Sometimes you write a really beautiful thing that is worthwhile being in the world and it doesn't go viral.

Vivek: I think about this all the time. I was around a bunch of influencers who were trying to convince me that the reason why my music career isn't where I wanted it to be is because I'm not on TikTok trying to go viral. I think there is this argument at all times that the thing that we should be aspiring for the most part is going viral. And I'm someone who's always advocating for artists, especially emerging artists to not pay attention to the numbers. Don't pay attention to the metrics and don't follow that stuff. 

Because especially when you're on tour — and to talk about books specifically — you can't actually track things like book sales, but you actually can't track how often someone picks up a physical object and engages with it, and it has an impact. And when you're out in the real world off the internet, I can't tell you how often I meet people who I'm not able to track their response, But at the same time, I think if you're in it for the long game, you need to let go of all that.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Stuart Berman