Brenda Miller, distance, essay, memoir, vice
In Brevity Updates, Brevity contributors, Teaching Resources, book reviews on November 4, 2009 at 10:14 am
You can imagine our excitement last week when Brenda Miller, author of so many beautiful Brevity essays and craft pieces (see here and here and here and here) dropped by the Brevity corporate offices last week as part of her visit to Ohio University’s BA, MA, and PhD in Creative Writing Program. Brenda gave a wonderful reading from her newest collection, Blessing of the Animals.
Just today, we ran across a fine interview with Brenda in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Q: How much distance do you need from a topic to write elegantly and clearly about it?
A: It depends. For certain things, I still don’t have enough distance, even though the events may have happened thirty years ago. For others, I write about them as they’re happening. In either case, I don’t think it’s the literal time, but the mind’s perspective on the topic or event that creates enough breathing room for something literary to happen on the page. Also: form. If you find the right form, or voice, for a piece, it can provide just the “container” you need for whatever the topic might be. And some of my essays span quite a bit of time; so I might start off by writing about an image from my childhood, which leads me to something quite close in the present day; once I’m on that train I’m not going to jump off.
You can read the full interview here.
Christina Nehring, Emerson, essay, montaigne, Patrick Madden
In Teaching Resources, book reviews, creative nonfiction, the essay on December 7, 2007 at 11:11 am
Patrick Madden, one of our favorite essayists and keeper of the exquisite Quotidiana, responds to our response to Nehring’s thoughts on what is wrong with the essay. [We welcome more responses].
I sympathize with Nehring’s lament, but I, like you, think she’s overstating a lot, which, in my opinion, is an unessayistic move. I don’t think that Montaigne was making grand proclamations; his way was very leisurely and reflexive, and subversive. He did make his way to truths, yes, so maybe that’s the more important point. Emerson, on the other hand, was a Baconian essayist, a guy with Wisdom to impart. He wrote well, had lots of great aphorisms, but he’s not the example I send my students to. My greater problem with what we call “essay” in a lot of contemporary journals jibes with Nehring’s line: “In our own day the essay is an apologetic imitation of the short story.” Writers have been doing autobiographical stories forever. But they’re stories. Essays ought to think more, to essay.
As for the Best American Essays 2007, my problem with it is much the opposite of what Nehring seems to be preaching. I find that too many of the pieces in it are overtly and uninterestingly political. They grab at current issues, state opinions, build arguments with evidence. David Foster Wallace calls them “service essays,” but I call them just articles or opinion pieces. They’re well-written, intelligent, right, etc., but they’re not essaying because their authors set out not to explore and discover but to make a predetermined point. Heck, I largely agree with their points (war is bad, torture is bad, George W. Bush is a knucklehead), but I don’t think we should be calling them essays.
Meanwhile, I think there are plenty of great essays being written, but they’re not widely read, and that IS too bad.
