Lord Coilleain's Realm

For All Those Who Dream! Spike

"Only a person who is congenitally self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays..."

~E. B. White~

About me...

Hi! I've always despised stats, so I'm not going to waste a lot of time babbling on about them. Besides, I'm just too shy to tell anyway! Any one who really knows me (like most of my close friends) will attest to that fact. I've been told since childhood that I was just way too shy. Sadly, verbal communication has never been my forte'. This unfortunate fact has undoubtedly contributed to my love for writing! Pen and paper can be the best ally that an extremely shy person such as myself could ever have. Because writing is a pure expression of "what I think" and "what I am," even the shyest person can let his/her imagination run wild! In the words of Joan Didion, "Writing is the act of saying I, of saying listen to me, see it my way, change your mind" In my opinion, Didion's writing "philosophy" is best represented by the personal essay. I guess you could refer to me as one of the last "personal essayists," for it seems to be a dying art form. It is a style of writing that has lost it's identity over the years. As Edward Hoagland said, "A personal essay is like the human voice talking, its order of the mind's natural flow, instead of a systematized outline of ideas." I think that this beautiful form of expression is truly a fascination of the mind and exercise in imagination! Because of this, the personal essay will always hold a special place in my heart!

As Phillip Lopate noted, "For more than four hundred years, the personal essay has been one of the richest and most vibrant of all literary forms. Distinguished from the formal essay by its friendly, conversational tone, its drive toward candor and confession, and its often quirky first-person voice, the personal essay offers above all a feast of individuality. It seizes on both the minutiae of daily life - fashions, rituals, vanities, family life, romantic foibles, the pleasures and pangs of solitude - and the great social and political issues of the day, from a daring, opinionated perspective. Frequently humorous, the personal essay is perhaps the most instantly approachable and divertingly human type of nonfiction." I consider my site to be a celebration of this lively, fertile genre! It is intended to honor all those who dare to expose their persona through the personal essay! It is a site that allows you to meet old literary friends, as well as new ones! I hope you enjoy perusing through my realm. So sit back and let the journey through the human experience begin!