I loved it.
An hour went by so quickly! It was just the right amount of time to step out of a Sunday and talk about essays, about writing, form and inspiration, and also not quite enough time, so those of us who could stayed in the conversation for an hour and a half.
If you who didn’t see the previous posts, I’m referring to our newly launched Sunday conversation about the essays in the latest Best American Essays (2023).
We’ll be meeting again next Sunday.
Where: Online, there’s a Zoom link…of course!
When: Sundays (seven Sundays)
Time: 11:00 AM PST
Why? Because essays are amazing, and there’s a lot to discuss! Inspiring, challenging, satisfying, revealing, questioning…they will stay with you…and it’s a blast.
Who? This is an open invitation. Jump in!
We looked at the first three essays today, and as happens, we spent most of our time discussing the first essay, “When We Were Boys,” by Ciara Alfaro, from the Water-Stone Review.
This essay was perhaps best encapsulated (if encapsulating a universe is even possible) as a “gender identity story…” but of course it’s everything at once, all kinds of things, and compressed, at just over seven pages. Stunning. As one person said in the group, it was the details that brought the work to life. The details build and convey a world.
And in this essay the author writes, “…she needed a love like the kind leaking from my skin to believe in. She needed it to be possible for a girl to be loved like a boy.”
That last bit is chilling. The single line raises so many questions, even as it poses as an answer. What a knockout.
The second essay definitely had our hearts, too. “Any Kind of Leaving”, by Jillian Barnet, from New Letters, begins, “Konrad Harman slept with one eye open.” From there…so much unfolds. Lifetimes. Some brought up the trustworthiness of the author, the narrator, and how much our trust in this voice contributed to the wild ride. Another brought up how very “rooted in her point-of-view” is all is, and how that is definitely a strength to the work.
The third essay prods at concerns of relative evil, human values, war, atomic weapons, and what it means to be alive, wandering on the surface of a larger, collective, murky ethical existence of creature comforts, perhaps.
And in reading the essays together, we carry our own questions and thoughts. One might be:
What do we do with the details of our internal and external world of experience, insights, emotions…how do we turn our lives into literature? It begins with words on the page, and then….
There was so much wisdom in the group—of all kinds. Thank you, writers and readers and physicists and professors and all of you, for your brilliance, and for all you brought to the conversation. I don’t take any of it for granted. Your ideas and insights make the group, the conversation, and I’m here for it.
See you next Sunday. Same time, same online place….
xo
Thanks for hosting this! I love hearing the viewpoints of such intelligent, sensitive people.
Monica! I am popping in to say HELLO and THANK YOU for your incredibly kind words about my essay. My heart absolutely melted reading this <3 It's a miracle for my story to find precious readers such as you and this group! I am so grateful. Xoxo, Ciara