The essay is a wonderful medium. I might mention that some writers who longed to be novelists were better as essayists: Sontag, Baldwin, Vidal, Mary McCarthy, Mailer.

A personal essay often includes some or a lot of personal confession. That makes the reader feel less lonely in their confusion and darkness.

The knowledge that my discriminations are skewed and not always universally desirable doesn't stop me in the least from making them.

I am apt to be harsh in my secret judgments of others, seeing them as defective because they are not enough like me.

Confession makes you a more trustworthy narrator.

Until people see poetry as springing from all of life, they will isolate it in a creativity corner and treat it like a mascot.

Domesticity has been a challenge for me but painful as it's been, engaging with family has been a school for reducing solipsism and increasing my understanding of people's different reactions to stress.