The intimate and meditative form that Plutarch became known for was completely new in his day.

Pedagogically, we need definitions and borders. They help us get our heads around what we're talking about.

I would ask the people who were generous toward my own work. After class one day a poetry professor said to me, "Hey, there's this guy Basho you would find interesting," and so I found Basho. A fiction teacher told me, "You ought to read Clarice Lispector if you're interested in that sort of in-between stuff," and then Lispector appeared. It's not magic. You just keep your eyes open.

I think that in a lot of readers' minds the essay is a lot more utilitarian than it is art.

The intimate and meditative form that Plutarch became known for was completely new in his day.

As a student at the time, I kind of felt like my only options as a nonfiction writer were to either jump on the personal essay bus or linger back at the station, hoping that some other heretofore unknown mode of transportation was going to magically show up to take me where I wanted to go.

If there's a poster boy for the fact that all essays are written through personae, it's Crèvecoeur.