I have a guest post on Brevity’s blog discussing the narrative and structural choices I made in my essay “Kathy,” published recently by Brevity. I first analyzed the piece here, and so with the Brevity blog exegesis—not to mention this notice—I have now written more words about the essay than are in the essay itself. I could go on. Which gives me the notion that writers might begin the practice of publishing essays that comment on their essays, books that …
Distilled from an essay of more than twenty pages and part of another of that length, my essay “Kathy” appears in the May 2009 edition of Brevity, a journal of concise nonfiction. Essays for Brevity may not exceed 750 words and are compressed wonders, caught moments, life’s puzzles, shining nuggets fetched tumbling from a brook. I’m proud to have work in this company! “Right before her high school senior photo, Kathy took her mother’s sewing scissors and sawed off her …
The writer, and editor of the journal of concise nonfiction, Brevity, was interviewed by Mary Richert as part of her nonfictionist series on her blog No Titles: I think certain experiments, with language, point-of-view, structure, work better in the short form. Very brief essays are like a petri dish for innovation. . . . [T]he lyric, almost ethereal essay as opposed to the highly journalistic ‘article’ – are both nonfiction, and nonfiction that allows creative choices on the part of …