Melanie Bell

Tag: personal essay

  • A Canadian’s First Impression of 10 Scottish Foods

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    Inspire Envisioning
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    “9 years ago today,” Google Photos reminded me, showing a carousel of pictures from Scotland. It’s been almost a decade since I arrived in the UK. What a roller coaster it’s been! I wrote about my experiences moving “across the pond” in my poetry book, The Heart Decided to Move. I wrote other pieces about the…

  • The Shadow of My Dead Sister

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    Personal essay previously published on xoJane Sometimes I share work here that’s gone out of print (or, as in this case, offline). Losing a parent last year has made me reflect on my earliest experience with family grief, for a sister I never knew. Below is a personal essay I wrote about her for xoJane,…

  • A Little Thing That Went Big

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    Last month, I had a personal essay published on Huffington Post. I wrote about the challenges of being petite and mistaken for someone much younger on a regular basis. It was a small essay, about being small. I never expected it to go so big.  As a mostly literary writer, I had a decent track…

  • How to Write a Personal Story That Connects with Readers

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    Inspire Envisioning
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    I recently finished doing a manuscript assessment for a memoir. The author was eager to tell their story to future generations of their family, having put much time and effort into researching their own family history and finding the stories sparse. A memoirist in my writers’ group is impelled by the same impulse. The lines…