The word essay comes from the French word ‘essayer’ meaning ‘to try’ or ‘to attempt’. A French writer called Michel de Montaigne invented the essay in Europe as his ‘attempt’ to write about himself ...

Les Perelman, a former director of undergraduate writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, sits in his wife’s office and reads aloud from his latest essay. “Privateness has not been and ...

Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. Can there be a political writer who has not fallen in love with George Orwell’s 1946 essay, “Politics and ...

An essay by George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” changed the trajectory of my career. I pivoted from a job as a college literature teacher to become a writing coach for students, ...