First Person Singular

This book introduces readers to the major traditions in autobiography and biography, illustrates how writers transform personal experience for different audiences, and explores the relationship between the writer's voice and stylistic features that express the writer's attitude towards his or her personal experience.The book guides readers in developing their reading and writing skills, introducing them to various techniques writers use to interpret experience. Chapters are organized according to themes that have traditionally elicited compelling autobiographical narratives, and include accounts of personal growth, nature writing, and narratives of religious and philosophical exploration. The book presents many different kinds of writing including diaries, journals, letters, biographies, memoirs, and expressive essays. This book is rich in a variety of perspectives by African-American, Native-American, Asian-American and Hispanic writers and offers cross-cultural and regional narratives as well as a core of selections by classic authors. Almost half of the fifty-nine selections are by women.