Posts Tagged ‘essay’
heartbreak and hoping
Oh why did I do this to myself? Why? For class tomorrow, I’m having my students read Susan Ito’s “Samuel” and Suzanne Kamata’s “You’re So Lucky.” I chose these pieces to spark discussion about point of view, emotional distance, and writing about heartbreak. But I’m not going to talk about how talented I think both…
Read Morewhere voice resides: the allergy diaries
There are a few essays so well-written that I could use them to teach each element of craft. Jill Christman’s “The Allergy Diaries” is one of these essays. “The Allergy Diaries” describes Christman’s infant daughter’s anaphylactic reaction to cow’s milk and the aftermath of this discovery. That is the situation in the essay. The real…
Read Morea choice, a responsibility
Last night I was watching the evening news—something I try never to do—and there was a story about the sextuplets just born in Minneapolis, at the same hospital where Stella was born. They are now on warming tables in the same children’s hospital where I sat for weeks, staring at my daughter. The coverage of…
Read Moremoonrise
Penny Wolfson’s essay “Moonrise” (Best American Essays 2002) is the only motherhood essay that I could find when I searched through two decades of Best American Essays. (Someone, please, correct me if I’m wrong—I’d love to be wrong about this.) Is this evidence that most memoirs and essays about motherhood are not taken seriously enough…
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