I recently reviewed a fascinating collection of essays called Quotidiana, written by author and BYU professor Patrick Madden. Such an interesting conversation with Pat ensued in the comments that I thought it would be a great idea to invite him back and interview him on the topic. Here at Segullah, we’re particularly interested in the creation and appreciation of good essays, so thank you, Pat, for offering your wisdom on the subject.

First, let’s make sure we have a clear understanding of some of the terminology we’ll be using. What is creative nonfiction?

I’m not sure it’s possible to be very clear on terminology, or, I suspect that the only people who are clear on such things are those who don’t know very much (Socrates: “I know only one thing, namely, that I know nothing”). Nevertheless, a simple, utilitarian definition of creative nonfiction is “literature derived from real events.” The term is a bit unwieldy, but it does serve to distinguish prose that’s made up from prose that’s true to reality.

Could you also describe the difference, as you see it, between “essay” and “memoir”? In your book of essays, Quotidiana, you rarely use the term “personal essay,” which is the term we here at Segullah often use to describe the creative nonfiction published in our journal. Is there a difference between a “personal essay” and an “essay” in your mind, or are the two terms synonymous?

Memoirs, with an s, used to mean a famous person’s autobiography, interesting or important for its content because its author was noteworthy in some way. Memoir without an s tends to mean a story from someone’s life (sometimes story-length, sometimes book-length), typically someone you’ve never heard of and in whom you’re not inherently interested, though the material that drives memoir tends to be interesting for its drama or exotic nature. Essay, originally, when Montaigne coined the noun from the verb, meant an attempt or a trial, an experiment; in practice this meant not autobiographical narrative but far-reaching thinking or meditation on a subject, filtered through the author’s individual sensibility and cast in the author’s personal voice. Nowadays, the adjective “personal” attached to the noun “essay” probably gets us closest to what Montaigne meant and what he did, as well as what centuries of writers after him did, for the most part, when they wrote “essays.” I lament that the term “essay” has been adulterated to mean something very nearly opposite what it meant originally. That is, when many people hear “essay,” they think of a linear article, with a point to prove, full of lofty language that obscures small ideas to fluff them out. So I try, in my small ways, to reclaim the word “essay” to mean a meandering, inconclusive amalgam of experience and ideas, written in a colloquial, engaging voice. I’ll limit myself to one quick quote about essays, an illustrative image from William Hazlitt, speaking of Montaigne as the king of that kind of writing “in which the reader is admitted behind the curtain, and sits down with the writer in his gown and slippers.” That’s what essays (personal essays) are (should be). For some of the clearest thinking on the subject of memoirs and essays, I encourage everyone to read Phillip Lopate’s “Reflection and Retrospection,” which basically argues for the essayfication of memoir.

Many of your essays are idea-driven instead of story-driven. Why do you enjoy writing idea-driven essays? Reading them?

I’m in love with thinking, especially unrestrained, associative thinking, the kind of idle fancying that combines dreams and cold, hard facts into a new creation. And I’ve always had wide-ranging interests, so I see (or find) connections between disparate objects and ideas all the time. I love to read other essayists because I get a sense that when I take their words into my brain, I can reconstitute some essential part of the authors, some sliver of soul, in a way that is not available with other forms of writing, which seem to focus too heavily on what happened or what an author imagined to have happened. An essay is an artistic representation of a whole mind as it thinks and remembers and plays, which gets at something deeper and more important, it seems to me, than a record of happenings.

You teach writing at Brigham Young University, so now I must ask you a question that seems to be de rigueur of writing instructors these days: Do you think writing can be taught?

Yes, absolutely, though perhaps “teaching” writing is something different from teaching mathematics. My writing has improved a great deal as a result of excellent teaching, and I’ve seen my own teaching affect many students in positive ways. What seems most effective is a subtle rhetoric of selection and demonstration, combined with small nudges toward ideas, plus detailed critique. I mean that a good writing teacher will offer excellent example texts, speak about them critically (in small and large ways), then offer writing exercises and make suggestions for student improvement, from punctuation to vocabulary to unexplored questions. I’m big on offering influences to students. I believe creativity, especially artistic creativity, is never ex nihilo, but is a reconfiguring of influences passed through an active and metacognitive individual. Creation is rearrangement. This is easily seen in writing, which consists only in placing old words in new orders.

Every year, Segullah sponsors an essay contest. Could you give our readers and potential writers some general advice regarding what a good essay should do? What a good essay avoids?

Your judges will certainly have their own criteria, but I love essays that move beyond straightforward recounting (recreating) of experience, that don’t rely on drama or sensationalism, that engage in a thoughtful way to grapple with the meaning of experience, or that explore an abstract idea through many concrete examples. I dislike obvious morals (whether stated or implied), preferring instead investigations of answerless questions. I like to learn something new from an essay, especially trivial information. I also value a strong emotional core, something that makes me, a stranger, who shouldn’t care about a writer, care anyway.

Many of Segullah’s readers are also bloggers. Do you have any feelings, pro or con, about blogging as a means of written expression and its relationship to traditional essay writing?

As I see it, “blog” refers to the medium, not the content or the value of writing as art. And with blogs, there’s no consensus about those more important things. So, blogging can be great, a democratic way of sharing insight and emotion. Many blogs, bloggers, and individual posts are enlightening. But my informal, incomplete survey of the blogosphere tells me that most blog posts are not literary, nor are most of them interesting or valuable to more than their authors and a small handful of invested friends and family members. This is OK. It doesn’t bother me. Most published books aren’t very literary. As for blogs’ relationship to essays: I think essays can be posted to blogs, or blogs can become essays, or bloggers are sometimes essayists, people ruminating experience and making a kind of guerrilla art. That’s great. And writing, no matter the writer’s abilities or goals, is nearly always salutary.

Your book is full of quotes and excerpts from others’ essays. Could you offer some reading recommendations for those of us who are interested in widening our essay-reading horizons? Who are some writers of creative nonfiction (both idea-driven essays and story-driven memoirs) that we should be reading?

Although I love the Great and Forgotten Dead, I’ll focus on some contemporary writers and books that have brought me beauty and joy:

- Brian Doyle Leaping: Revelations and Epiphanies (the best book by one of the greatest spiritual essayists in the world)
- Mary Cappello Awkward: A Detour (an exhaustive, humorous personal investigation of awkwardness)
- Annie Dillard Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (a wonderful example of meditative nature writing)
- Ian Frazier Great Plains (a surprisingly vibrant exploration of one of the most seemingly boring places on earth)
- Eduardo Galeano The Book of Embraces (brief vignettes of stark, heart-wrenching, dream-inducing nonfiction)
- Scott Russell Sanders Hunting for Hope (theme-driven essays about parenthood in contemporary culture)
- W. G. Sebald The Rings of Saturn (one of the strangest, most powerful books I’ve ever encountered)
- Joni Tevis The Wet Collection (small memory/imagination excursions through odd jobs and places)

Of course, I could go on and on, but I’ll end with an invitation to low-budget or past-loving readers to visit quotidiana.org, which includes hundreds of wonderful classical essays. I recommend starting with Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt, A. A. Milne, G. K. Chesterton, Agnes Repplier, Vernon Lee, Louise Imogen Guiney, and Alice Meynell.

I’d like to thank Pat for a great, insightful interview. And now, for the rest of you: what are your thoughts on what makes a good essay? Memoir? What are some of your favorite essays or memoirs? Do you agree or disagree with Madden that the best essays are idea-driven instead of story-driven? Do you find that blogging encourages “unrestrained, associative thinking, the kind of idle fancying that combines dreams and cold, hard facts into a new creation” that Madden champions? (And are such blog posts even essays? Or are they simply the beginnings of essays?) How has your experience with such writing been different from the “essays” of high school English class?

And to all you essay writers out there: Don’t forget Segullah’s yearly essay contest, deadline: Dec 31. Also, the literary magazine of the Association for Mormon Letters I co-edit, Irreantum, will accept submissions for its annual essay and fiction contests until May 31. Write, polish, submit!.

Related posts:

1. I’d Write Creative Nonfiction If I Knew What the Heck It Was
2. Want to write for Segullah? Read Segullah!
3. O Revise, What Can I Say More?