S146. Just Don't Read the Comments: On the Joys and Risks of Publishing Personal Essays Online

Liberty Salon I, J, & K, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Four
Saturday, February 11, 2017
10:30 am to 11:45 am

 

Technological innovation has brought many opportunities to essayists. The rise of online magazines and websites that specialize in personal writing allow us to reach a large and diverse audience. However, these opportunities also come with problems, from meanspirited trolls casting aspersions in comments sections all the way up to serious harassment and even physical threats. These panelists will discuss their own triumphs and frustrations with publishing personal essays online.


Participants

Moderator:

William Bradley is the author of Fractals, a collection of personal essays. His work has also appeared in a variety of magazines, journals, and websites, including Salon, Brevity, the Mary Sue, Inside Higher Ed, the Missouri Review, the Normal School, Utne Reader, and Creative Nonfiction.

Laura Bogart is a featured writer for Salon. Her work has appeared in the Guardian, DAME, the Rumpus, the Nervous Breakdown, and IndieWire, among other publications. She has finished her first novel, tentatively titled Don't You Know That I Love You?

Penny Guisinger is the author of Postcards from Here and the founding director of Iota: Short Prose Conference. Her work has appeared in Fourth Genre, River Teeth, the Rumpus, and others. Pushcart-nominated and a Best American Essays notable, Guisinger is an assistant editor at Brevity magazine.

Sarah Kilch Gaffney's essays have appeared online in the Washington Post, Modern Loss, Hippocampus, Mamalode, and Brain, Child, among others, and she is a regular contributor to the Bangor Daily News Online. Her writing often explores young widowhood and parenting through grief.

#AWP24

February 7–10, 2024
Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City Convention Center