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Award-winning writer Cynthia Ozick once described the essay as “the movement of a free mind at play.” This course will combine intellectual rigor with the freedom of the personal essay form, which is exploratory by nature. Weekly in-class exercises will embolden us to take more risks and push more boundaries. We’ll delve into the processes of drafting and revision, and discuss different strategies for getting your work into the hands of a wider readership. Throughout the course, we’ll look at various techniques for crafting personal essays, reading seminal works by contemporary authors like Eula Biss, David Gessner, Anne Lamott, and David Sedaris. The most important texts for the course will be the essays of participants, which will be read with compassion as well as constructive critique.