Here at The Memoir Project, we regularly teach a live, online class in how to write op-eds. This class, which goes by the name How To Write Opinion Pieces: Op-Eds, Radio Essays and Digital Commentary, includes instruction in how to write an op-ed, how to write on Medium, how to write a column for Substack and how to write audio essays for radio and podcasts. Join us, and learn how to get your voice out into the world.
Here, for your education, is a regularly-updated list of fine, published op-eds for you to consider.
Enjoy.
Examples for You to Study
How to Write an Op-ed: Op-Ed Writing Tips
- Op-ed writing tips from The New York Times
Columns to Read
- Rex Smith on Substack, The Upstate American
- Margaret Renkl on What dying looks like
- Heather Cox Richardson on Substack
Authors Promoting Upcoming Books
- Alissa Quart on putting and end to America’s most dangerous myth
- A clinical psychologist on The Joy of Being a Seventy-Year-Old Woman
- An author of a previous book with a new area of expertise: porn
Authors Promoting Published Books
- There Has Never Been a Better Time to Be Short, by an author promoting a book
- On being in an impossible place with one’s child, from Sarah Wildman, opinion writer, The New York Times
- On the Power of Knitting, by Peggy Orenstein, from The New York Times
- An author promoting his book about thinking beyond lawns
Authors Writing From Professional Areas of Expertise
- Advocacy writing that is at good as it gets. This, from a dying transplant patient.
- Cougars are Heading East. We Should Welcome Them, by the director of a puma program
- The Ethical Case for Having a Baby with Down Syndrome, written by pro-choice parents
- A professor of philosophy on God in these times
Regular People Writing from Home
- A Los Angeles fire survivor on what was almost lost.
- An op-ed from a Montana rancher worrying about drilling on her land.
- Voting as someone with a disability, from The Philadelphia Inquirer
- I am Liesl Von Trapp and I Owe the Resistance An Apology
- A 2021 letter to Arkansas by writer Natalie Sanders Graumann
- An essay by a visitor to Houston argues for more protection for pedestrians, published in the Houston Chronicle
- A mom’s take on the mental health treatment: I’ve tried the system. It doesn’t work.
- The unexpected on Father’s Day
- All about Gay pride now
- Dropping off the kid at college
- A man who was disabled by a falling tree and becomes a disability advocate in NYC
Regular People Writing From Their Jobs
- A Third-Year Medical Student on I Remember The First Time I Saw a Teenager Die
- In the San Antonio Express-News, a Texas parent of teenagers argues in support of school choice:
- A medical professional on The upside of bad genes
- From the mat on why Yoga teachers need a code of ethics
Famous Authors Using Their Voices
- Ta-Nehisi Coates on The Cancel Culture
- #MeToo isn’t enough by Barbara Kingsolver
