I look for the kind of text that doesn't look like the writer I'm considering. Plutarch is a great example. John D'Agata More Quotes by John D'Agata More Quotes From John D'Agata I get emails from students at programs all over the country who want to transfer to Iowa, and in most cases their frustrations have absolutely nothing to do with the programs they're attending. They have to do with the growing pains that they're undergoing as writers and with the growing pains that our own genre is constantly undergoing. John D'Agata frustrationpaincountry You create your own audience, and your own community of peers, and in some ways you create your own forebears as well. John D'Agata peerscommunityway While I was in school, trying to figure out how to write an essay that could both satisfy my nonfiction workshops and still pass as something hybrid-y enough for my poetry workshops, I was looking for models, for forebears. John D'Agata writingtryingschool I felt a little lost as a student. At Iowa, I felt as if I had gotten into this program that was going to save me, and so I moved myself across the country for grad school and yet still didn't have a home. It was upsetting. And I know that's a common feeling. John D'Agata homecountryschool In college I studied essays with a poet, and so I think my interpretation of the genre was always going to be a little off-kilter. John D'Agata collegelittlesthinking As frustrating as my time in grad school felt, it also helped tremendously because it challenged me to figure out what it was I thought I wanted. John D'Agata gradfiguresschool Back in the day, a lot of our instructors in nonfiction were actually fiction scholars. So they would bring in stories as models for the essay. And in some ways that's a good idea, because we can all learn from other genres. But I think it also made me realize that I literally didn't have an essay model, and that if I wanted one I would have to find it. John D'Agata fictionideasthinking And Lopate's anthology helped a lot too. It came out the same year I started grad school, and I remember the book's publication feeling eventful and celebratory. It got a ton of attention for giving voice to this form that had sort of slipped between the cracks. That was exciting to see. John D'Agata bookyearsschool As a student at the time, I kind of felt like my only options as a nonfiction writer were to either jump on the personal essay bus or linger back at the station, hoping that some other heretofore unknown mode of transportation was going to magically show up to take me where I wanted to go. John D'Agata nonfictionkindstudents I thought that I wasn't an essayist because I just didn't see myself in a lot of the essays that were popular at the time. That's why I joined the poetry program in grad school. John D'Agata gradprogramschool For a while I just couldn't imagine that there was a place for me in nonfiction. I looked around at what we were calling nonfiction and I thought, "Maybe you do have to go to poetry in order to do this other weird thing in nonfiction." John D'Agata nonfictioncallingorder Yet there are some critics in the nonfiction world who still look at some of today's stranger interpretations of the essay and say "You don't belong here. That's not how we do things." I think that's problematic. John D'Agata todayworldthinking I'm not a poet, but I was in the poetry program. And I'm also not much of a nonfiction writer, at least not in the standard sense of nonfiction, nor especially in the way we were thinking about nonfiction back then, in the late 90s. John D'Agata nonfictionwaythinking A risk is something that feels risky to the person who's taking it. John D'Agata riskpersonsfeels When I'm teaching, I'm not really doing my job if the student who's always comfortable doing wacko stuff all over the page keeps getting gold stars from me for doing wacko stuff all over the page. A riskier assignment for that student, who might be used to hiding behind a lot of formal armor, would be to try to do something straightforward, traditionally, in which they are much more directly laid bare for the reader. John D'Agata starsteachingjobs I know it sounds silly, but disrespecting a dead writer by sitting in a chair that probably never belonged to him still felt like a risk to me. So I chickened out. John D'Agata risksoundsilly If Plutarch is the essayist I want to believe he is, he would want us all to sit in his chair. John D'Agata chairswantbelieve The essay community should have hundreds of anthologies from hundreds of different perspectives that are constantly introducing us to new writers, new work, and new visions for our genre. The whole spirit of these anthologies is that there should never be a last word in how essays are interpreted or what they can be. John D'Agata perspectivecommunityshould-have Even if it's a definition that feels oppressive to us, that oppression can be inspiring because it helps us push up against something while we're writing. Or if it's a definition that we want to defend and uphold, we are given a sense of the boundaries within which we can work. John D'Agata definitionswantwriting If there's a poster boy for the fact that all essays are written through personae, it's Crèvecoeur. John D'Agata postersboysfacts
