Yet there are some critics in the nonfiction world who still look at some of today's stranger interpretations of the essay and say "You don't belong here. That's not how we do things." I think that's problematic.
John D'AgataYou create your own audience, and your own community of peers, and in some ways you create your own forebears as well.
John D'AgataI thought that I wasn't an essayist because I just didn't see myself in a lot of the essays that were popular at the time. That's why I joined the poetry program in grad school.
John D'AgataI wanted to create an environment in which more than just personal essays could be represented, and in which stranger approaches to making essays could be celebrated.
John D'AgataWhen I'm teaching, I'm not really doing my job if the student who's always comfortable doing wacko stuff all over the page keeps getting gold stars from me for doing wacko stuff all over the page. A riskier assignment for that student, who might be used to hiding behind a lot of formal armor, would be to try to do something straightforward, traditionally, in which they are much more directly laid bare for the reader.
John D'Agata