I look for the kind of text that doesn't look like the writer I'm considering. Plutarch is a great example.
John D'AgataIf there's a poster boy for the fact that all essays are written through personae, it's Crรจvecoeur.
John D'AgataWhat I didn't realize when I was in school and what I suspect a lot of young writers today don't get either is that you have to create the world that you want to exist in as an artist.
John D'AgataThe whole movement of an essay is propelled by a fundamentally human impulse to want to figure things out.
John D'Agata