“Personal writing sometimes seems more ubiquitous than ever, available everywhere in the form of blogs, reviews, and emerging publications. But what makes an essay successful, important, and necessary? In this course, we will think about the work that essay writing can accomplish in regards to achieving truth, mining your own depths, and engaging with culture. We will discuss nonfiction writing that spans from addressing trauma to race to family to food, all while attempting to write some of our best and most urgent work yet. We will read work from Ta-Nehisi Coates, James Baldwin, Jenny Zhang, T Kira Madden, and Audre Lorde, among others, and there will be ample opportunity for workshop and generative writing.