ELENI GAGE
Eleni N. Gage is a veteran magazine journalist and the author of the travel memoir North of Ithaka, the novels Other Waters and The Ladies of Managua, and the gift book Lucky In Love: Traditions, Customs, & Rituals to Personalize Your Wedding. The former articles editor of O: The Oprah Magazine, she has also served on-staff at Allure, Elle, InStyle, People, and Martha Stewart Weddings. A graduate of Harvard University (where she majored in Folklore and Mythology) and the School of the Arts at Columbia University (where she earned her MFA in Fiction), Eleni contributes freelance articles to publications ranging from Travel+Leisure to The New York Times. As a freelance editor, she assigns and edits personal essays for outlets including OprahDaily.com and Le Scoop, the online magazine at Maisonette.com. Eleni lives in New York with her Nicaraguan husband and their two Greekaraguan children.
WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR
I am happy to share my own experience as a writer of fiction and nonfiction, but as an editor for online and print magazines I'm mainly seeking personal essays about significant experiences, transformations and epiphanies in the writer's life. I'm also interested in essays about parenting and family dynamics, as I assign two personal essays a month for Le Scoop, the magazine vertical of Maisonette.com.
Specializes In:
Travel writing, Folklore, Fiction, Personal Essays.
A successful first-person essay describes a moment or experience that is deeply personal and unique to the individual—written in such a way that a vast range of readers immediately relate to it with strong reactions and emotions of their own. An essay can describe a major transformation or dramatic event such as leaving a marriage or a near-death experience, or it can be about a quiet moment like teaching a kid to jump rope, but it should speak to larger, universal experiences or emotions: love, loss, joy, fear. The best essays are incredibly specific but universally understood.