Find the story only you can tell.
After two decades reading submissions, I know what makes a piece of writing come alive.
It is the sudden feeling there's a real person on the other side of the page. — A.M. Arden, Founder & Publisher, First Read
Most essay advice begins with the prompt. Rising begins with the student.
The Stet Strips reveal the story only you can tell.
"Everybody is original, if he tells the truth, if he speaks from himself. But it must be from his true self and not from the self he thinks he should be."
— Brenda Ueland, If You Want to WriteFind the story only you can tell.
Get Rising — $39Digital workbook · Instant PDF download
"The scariest moment is always just before you start."
"Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open."
"If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people."
Before we write the essay, we have to unlearn the assignment. Twelve years of school teach students to get the answer right. The college essay asks for something else: to be unforgettable.
Rising gets students from right to unforgettable.
Dissolve the performing self. Bait-and-switch exercises that approach the student's real material sideways, before the critical mind has time to curate it.
Active incubation. The unconscious working. Exercises grounded in documented techniques for accessing material the waking, performing mind keeps offstage.
Surface, select, shape. The moment the True Subject appears — what we call the Eureka Moment — and the work of building an essay from the inside out begins.
Your guided workbook and Stet Strips deck. Over a million ways in.
Your essay — only unforgettable.
Get Rising — $39Digital workbook · Instant PDF download
Some stories need a reader. If you'd like guidance uncovering your essay, private coaching is available. See Coaching Options →
"After the fiftieth essay of the night, admissions officers are not looking for perfection. They are looking for a reason to keep reading. The essays they remember are the ones that feel unmistakably alive."
— A.M. Arden · Founder & Publisher, First Read
I came in with a list of topics my college counselor helped me put together. None of them felt like mine. By the third exercise I had an essay I actually wanted to read. My teacher ended up asking me to share it with the class.