The Essayist’s Life: Open and Free
July 7, 2016 § 3 Comments
Julija Šukys has posted an excellent interview with essayist Patrick Madden on the occasion of his latest collection, Sublime Physick, from University of Nebraska Press. Here is Madden explaining how he came to love the essay form:
Patrick Madden Pondering the Essay Form
Gradually I realized that I loved to think wildly, without restraint, flitting from one subject of interest to the next as the spirit moved me. And eventually I discovered or decided that writing essays could be a way to keep my life open and free, to study what subjects inspired me for as long as they inspired me, and then move on. So I came to the essay knowingly, intentionally, and with great hopes. I think now that I was naïve, but also very lucky, so that my life has worked out to be what I had hoped for.
You can and really should read the entire interview on her blog, Writing. Life.
“So I came to the essay knowingly, intentionally, and with great hopes. I think now that I was naïve, but also very lucky, so that my life has worked out to be what I had hoped for.” Fiction came to me later in life, but my history as an essayist begins in childhood, cheerfully arguing at the dinner table with my family. I wonder now why it took me so long to see myself that way. Patrick Madden seems to have gotten it right.
nice
Glad you introduced him to me. Thanks.