Getting Personal Selected Essays

Phillip Lopate's name is practically synonymous with the return of popular interest in the essay. The editor of the bestsellers The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present, Writing New York: A Literary Anthology and the Anchor Annual Essay Series, Lopate is known for his exquisite taste in other's essays and a probing revelatory style of his own. Getting Personal will span his career as a writer--moving from his trilogy Bachelorhood, Against Joie de Vivre and Portrait of My Body--to also include some of his well-known film writing from Totally, Tenderly, Tragically: Essays and Criticism from a Lifelong Love Affair With the Movies, as well as previously unpublished pieces. Getting Personal tells two stories: the development of Lopate's career as a writer, and the story of his life. The fact that the former has often provided fodder for the latter gives you a hint at the pleasure of reading this collection. Getting Personal comprises a guide to Lopate's writingcareer and,also an intellectual autobiography, rooted in his own experience as one of America's best-known, and most accessible, essay writers.

Currently the John Cranford Adams Chair of the English Department at Hofstra University, Phillip Lopate is the author of five works of nonfiction, two novels, and two books of poems, as well as serving as editor of the best-selling collections Writing New York and The Art of the Personal Essay. The recipient of two Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts grants, he lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter.