This class on the personal essay emphasizes writing exercises and reading for inspiration, as well as workshop-style feedback. You will choose the particular aspects you like from the essays we read—a word, a sentence, an opening, a structure, a subject—as beginnings, or launching pads, for your own essays. For instance, beginning every sentence with “I remember,” as Joe Brainard did, could unlock new language for you, rich in sensory detail. Likewise, Dinty W. Moore’s quotations from 1950s kissing manuals could lead you to invent a non-linear structure to write about first love. The goal would be to expand these beginnings, written during class, into longer personal essays, as a basis for receiving structured feedback from other students. I will also give you individual written feedback. To personalize the reading, you will each get the chance to present a favorite personal essay by a published author to the class. In addition to short essays on craft, we will read examples of personal essays from sources such as the New York Times columns “Lives” and “Modern Love,” Brevity, the Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction, and Gulf Coast. Phillip Lopate, a contemporary master of the personal essay, co-founded the literary journal Gulf Coast in 1986 and it’s since become a mainstay of Houston cultural life. In that spirit, we will look at Phillip Lopate’s essays, as well as his thoughts on the form. No need to purchase a book: For all readings, I will email you either an online link or a PDF, which you can print out.