Includes bibliographical references (pages 287-297).
Contents:
On endings: all in all, it was a really weird summer / Ryan van Meter. Invisible engineering: the fine art of revising "The fine art of sighing" / Marcia Aldrich -- On Christ Marker's Sans Soleil / Kristen Radtke -- Majestic ruins: on the work of James Agee / Robin Helmley -- On essays, assays, and Yiyun Li's "Dear friend, from my life I write to you in your life" / V.V. Ganeshananthan -- The assault on prose: John Crowe Ransom, new criticism, and the status of the essay / Robert Atwan -- On Joan Didion, Repo Man, and a '76 Malibu / Matt Dube -- On Collage, Chris Kraus, and misremembered Didion / Aisha Sabatini Sloan -- Looking for Samuel Delany / T Clutch Fleischmann -- Observations about writing memoir in my twenties, thirties, and forties / Rigoberto González -- On the mysterious Leslie Ryan and the structure of a trauma narrative / Katherine E. Standefer -- On Arianne Zwartje's "This suturing of wounds or words" and Kisha Lewellyn Schlegel's "Cannulated screw" / Julie Lauterbach-Colby -- Living within the ellipses: on Ilan Stavan's On Borrowed Words: a Memoir of Language / César Díaz -- On Joan Didion, on the morning after my twenties / Emily Deprang -- On writing young / Lucas Mann -- On losing yourself / Danica Novgorogoff -- Is the essay at the end of time? / Ken Chen -- Email / from Bonnie J. Rough -- On the essential art of failing / Peter Grandbois -- Leaping / Albert Goldbarth -- Julian Barnes brings light to a thanatophobe's conundrum / Alison Hawthorne Deming -- On Tom Junod's "The falling man" / Steven Church -- We sought but couldn't find: coming up empty in David Shields's "Death is the mother of beauty" / Bethany Maile -- Movie quotes as misery: on Claudia Rankine's Don't Let Me Be Lonely / David Legault -- A paperback cabinet of wonder: unlocking the long lyric essay / Joni Tevis -- The essays of Ansel Adams: an allegory / John D'Agata -- 10 thoughts on Elision / Meehan Crist -- On Donald Hall's "Out the window" / Thomas Mira y Lopez -- On the virtues of drowning: Lidia Yuknavitch's the Chronology of Water / Danielle Cadena Deulen -- On Hoagland, animal obsession, and the courage of simile / John T. Price -- On David Quammen and writing trout / Maya L. Kapoor -- On long winters, short essays, and a sky that stretches forever / Chelsea Biondolillo -- On Wendell Berry and why I'm not going to buy a smartphone / Megan Kimble -- It is a shaggy world, studded with gardens / Brian Doyle -- Nonfiction like a brick / Nicole Walker -- On the fugue, Alison Bechdel's Are You My Mother?, DFW, and the resistance to the one thing / Paul Lisicky -- On The Squared Circle: Life, Death, and Professional Wrestling by David Shoemaker / Brian Oliu -- On Rick Reilly's "Need a fourth?" from Sports Illustrated, March 31, 1997 / Pam Houston -- On Jim Bouton's Ball Four / Dave Mondy -- On a little-known gem by Max Beerbohm / Phillip Lopate -- On Eliot Weinberger's "Wrens" / Amy Benson -- On Charles Lamb's "New Year's Eve" / Patrick Madden -- On the Book of Days / Elena Passarello -- On the false glint of fool's gold and cliché / Erin Zweiner -- The present of our past: on Alexander Stille / Patricia Vigerman -- A fat man story: on H.L. Mencken's "A neglected anniversary" / Ander Monson -- On endings: all in all, it was a really weird summer / Ryan van Meter.
Summary:
"The essay is rhizomatic: it builds off and shoots out conversations between us every time we read, reread, or write. When we speak back to others we amplify ourselves and get a foothold in an ongoing conversation. How We Speak to One Another collects those conversations, giving context to a genre, deepening the flexibility and vitality of its many forms"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.