Unearthing the Personal

Toni Lepeska, the Writer's Digest 3rd Annual Personal Essay Awards grand-prize winner, discusses the difference between journalism and essay writing, exploring grief, and raising the bar for yourself

- MORIAH RICHARD

A s I speak with Toni Lepeska about her grand-prize win in the Writer's Digest 3rd Annual Personal Essay Awards, it strikes me by the passion in her voice that this is someone who takes her writing career very seriously. She's been a professional journalist for 30 years, and she says that her favorite stories to cover have always been about people rising above adversity.

"Those stories, I think they resonate with people because we all have something that challenges us and that maybe we think we cannot beat," she says. "Those stories can be so inspiring to people." She recounts a particularly impactful story of a woman who had a facial tumor that led to her being permanently disfiguredbut it was her optimistic attitude around her diagnosis and treatment that Lepeska carries with her, years after the interview was conducted. "I just want people to be able to grab a hold of something in a story ... and be able to go through their situation and overcome it or to survive it with a more positive way for them [to live] their lives."

She had been writing about others and their challenges for about 20 years before she lost both of her parents. While dealing with the emotional backlash of grief and loss, she set to the task of cleaning out their home, which took several years. "I couldn't bear to throw away or give away much of anything. Everything had enormous feeling attached to it ... even though I'd be crying, it was very healing."