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 Copy Share Image
I wanted to create an environment in which more than just personal essays could be represented, and in which stranger approaches to making essays could be celebrated. — John D'Agata Copy Share Image
Inclusiveness isn't what I want to push back against. The obsession with facts is. — John D'Agata Copy Share Image
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… — John D'Agata Copy Share Image
I think that in a lot of readers' minds the essay is a lot more utilitarian than it is art. — John D'Agata Copy Share Image
As frustrating as my time in grad school felt, it also helped tremendously because it challenged me to figure out what it was I… — John D'Agata Copy Share Image
I'm not worried about what part of their life they needed to massage in order to achieve something that I get to experience as… — John D'Agata Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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… — John D'Agata Copy Share Image
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… — John D'Agata Copy Share Image
You move your life across the country and make a commitment to a place, and to a genre, and then you realize that neither… — John D'Agata Copy Share Image
Pedagogically, we need definitions and borders. They help us get our heads around what we're talking about. — John D'Agata Copy Share Image
“Maybe every essay automatically is in some way experimental — less an outline traveling toward a foregone conclusion than an unmapped quest that has… — John D'Agata Copy Share Image
