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To call oneself a born personal essayist seems implicitly ironic, like calling oneself a born dowager. But there are people like that – people like me – who seem to stay latent until a suppressed vocation gene is switched on by the attainment of some appropriate life stage. I remember registering the following thought: now that I’ve waited out the lived part of my life, my real work can finally begin. |
Selected Essays |
“Faculty Brat,” BOULEVARD, Spring 1995, special mention, PUSHCART PRIZE ANTHOLOGY.
“Mockingbird Years,” Boulevard, Spring 1996, special mention, PUSHCART PRIZE ANTHOLOGY, reprinted in THE ANCHOR ESSAY ANNUAL 1997, Phillip Lopate, ed., reprinted in Italian in Alexander Carrera, ed., IL DOVERE DELLA FELICITA, special mention, PUSHCART PRIZE ANTHOLOGY, special mention BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS, 1997. “The Frisky Variations,” SOUTHWEST REVIEW, Winter 1997. Reprinted in BEST TEXAS WRITING 2, Brian Clements, ed. “Faculty Wife,” SALMAGUNDI, Winter, 1997, reprinted in THE ANCHOR ESSAY ANNUAL, 1998, Phillip Lopate, ed. “The Most Responsible Girl,” BOULEVARD, Fall 1997, reprinted in PUSHCART PRIZE ANTHOLOGY, 1999, special mention, BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS, 1998. “Baby Huey,” BOULEVARD, Fall 1998. “Leaving Indianapolis,” CULTURE FRONT, Spring 1999. “My Last Therapist,” SALMAGUNDI, Summer 1999, reprinted in THE ART OF THE ESSAY, Phillip Lopate, ed., reprinted in TALES FROM THE COUCH: WRITERS ON THE TALKING CURE, Jason Schinder, ed., Avon Books, 2000, reprinted in SALMAGUNDI 50TH Anniversary Issue, Fall, 2015. “Are You Happy?” BOULEVARD, Spring, 2001. “Fantastic Voyage,” SALMAGUNDI, Fall 2002. “Book of Days,” THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR, Spring 2002 (link) “Save the Memoir?” AMERICAN LITERARY REVIEW, Winter 2007. “Here Again,” BOULEVARD, Spring 2010. “At Sixty-Five,” THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR, Summer 2013, reprinted in BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS, 2014, John Jeremiah Sullivan, ed. “Barnacle,” COLORADO REVIEW, 2014 link (Project Muse) “Home,” SOUTHWEST REVIEW, Fall 2014 “The Meaning of Fulfillment,” New York Times Sunday Review Opinion, Oct. 26 2014 (link) “Confessing and Confiding,” THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR, Spring 2016. “Mr. Sears,” PLOUGHSHARES, Summer 2016 (Project Muse) “Why I Teach,” under review. |