Hello Friends. Happy September.
I realize I start a lot of these newsletters with “When I was a kid…” I am about to do it again. I am officially that guy. Sorry.
When I was a kid, I hated tests. They seemed pointless. If you wanted me to memorize when the British defeated the Spanish Armada, I could say 1588 and I would be right. I didn’t even look that up, because I memorized it at some point for some class and here I am, a zillion years later, still spouting that tidbit as though I had some kind of knowledge associated with that fact. There is no real knowledge there, it is just information. I know who directed Dazed and Confused (Richard Linklater) and who plays bass in Duran Duran (John Taylor) but what does that get me?
Of course, knowing how something happened is more useful. How did Linklater fund that movie might be a novel bit of trivia. How did John Taylor lay down that funky bass line in “The Reflex?” might be interesting, but it doesn’t really give me any answers to the secrets of the universe. I still don’t know what the Reflex is. I do know that every little thing it does “leaves me answered with a question mark,” because I have that song memorized and for those not in the know, that is a line from the song. Similarly, I don’t actually know HOW the British defeated the Spanish Armada. Something to do with boats and the Dutch. It didn’t stick because it wasn’t useful enough I guess. I am sure that I regurgitated it on a test at some point and I don’t actually know that any longer. It wasn’t going to be Jeopardy. It didn’t stick.
For me, the real fun comes from thinking about WHY the Spanish were knocking on England’s door and WHY it is super important for the future of the British Empire in general and the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in particular (and if I’m being honest, for the fate the United States as well which wasn’t even a twinkle in our mother’s eye at that point) for the British to win. It is in the WHY that information becomes knowledge. Do you know how I know all about the religious overtones to the battle and the importance of the survival of the Anglican Church’s overall effect on the creation of the United States and Canada? It’s because I wrote an essay about it. Essays are the place where information goes to become knowledge.
See, some people argue that essay tests are mean-spirited. Some argue that teachers ask students to write essays because we hate them. Some argue that essays are just busy work hurdles on the track of life. I am here to tell you, friends, once and for all, that essays may take work (this is over 400 words in and I am still not to the point), but in the end, they are their own reward. Essays make us remember. Essays live within us forever.
Essays connect people. Sure, they are homework too, but when I ask a student to write an essay reflecting on an assignment, I get to learn more about that person than I ever could if she just knew the answer was…Fill in the blank. The blank is irrelevant. 1588, 1776, 1945, all huge years in the history of the world, but without context, they mean nothing. We learn from reading (or listening to) and writing essays. Why do we know so much about Hamilton? He wrote essays. Why do we know so much about Dr. King? He wrote essays.
Essays teach us about our world, but they teach us about ourselves too. Some of the best essays ever written are personal. Stephen King’s On Writing is listed as a memoir, but it is a collection of essays that teach us how to write, while telling us about the man as well. Orwell, Baldwin, Hughes, Hurston, Woolf, Emerson, Rand, and on and on, writers you might know from something else, all wrote essays because sometimes, fiction isn’t enough, because sometimes poems are not enough, because sometimes, there is no song big enough or loud enough to capture everything that is just bursting to get out. Those kinds of writing and all speak he truth, but an essay lays it all on the line. If fiction is the mind of literature and poetry is the soul, essays are the open heart, bare for all to see. There is nowhere to hide.
Essays allow us to tell each other WHY. They allow us to show ourselves WHY. Read fiction, and watch movies, and go see a play, but make sure you treat yourself now and again with an essay collection or better yet, sit down and write one yourself. I guarantee you'll learn something amazing.
Notes From My Bookshelf
I have read essays from everyone listed above and I have for the most part, been better off for having read them. Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own is required reading for one of my classes. You should make it part of your life too. Also required reading is Ta-Nehisi Coates’ essay from 2014, “A Case for Reparations.”
While I know I have a theme going here, I would like to make one recommendation that isn't an essay collection. I would be remiss during this September newsletter if I did not recommend the Fairyland Series by Catherynne M. Valente. The first book is called The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. The titular girl is called September. There is a half-wyvern/half-library called A through L. It is practically perfect in every way.
Notes From My Keyboard
So, I have a new job, a promotion actually, and thus, I have not been writing at the clip I would like to write. Book 4 of The Austen Chronicles is coming along sure but steady. I am way ahead of my deadline, so that is nice. I should be spending time with this book this weekend.
Just a reminder, I edited and contributed to an essay collection coming out on October 2nd. It is called Comics Lit. Volume 1 and it is really, really good. I am proud of it and the amazing contributors. I also have essays in two books from Sequart. I learned a lot about myself and my subjects while writing them. Please check out all the amazing essay collections over there. I am proud to have my name in just two of these books. They are all worth your time and attention.
If you have not picked up your digital advance reader copy of That Other Dashwood Girl or Comics Lit Vol 1. You can get them both here. If you click the links of the books just above, you can pre-order them at your favorite bookstore.
Thanks again for being a subscriber,
ARF
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