A personal essay is as much about the reader as it is about the writer. All of the essays on this list demonstrate exceptional writing, but each piece struck a clear chord with the editors who selected it. For Sayward, it was an essay about grief. In Krista’s case, articles about community experiences. Peter was attracted to the video his game writing (red dead redemption 2), Cheri about the immigrant experience and caring for loved ones, and Carolyn about her fear of missing out as she gets older (and the vicious ticks of the jungle).
I hope you find something you can relate to as you read these beautiful personal stories.
Kamran Javadizadeh | Yale University Review | June 12, 2023 | 3,285 words
Grief is unpredictable. Sometimes they sting, and sometimes they suffocate. It’s not about crying or screaming, it’s about going numb. Grief is also immeasurable. We cannot see, much less reach, the edge of our loved ones being forever gone. “Grief may be the knowledge that the future will not be like the past,” writes Kamran Javadizadeh in this wonderful essay about the death of his sister Vita. “Like water on a page, it spreads in all directions, thinning the surface and touching the untouchable.” Javadizadeh describes her grief through the lens of the poetry she encountered during the loss of Bita. Looking back.copy of dead and living Written by Sharon Olds. Full of notes from Vita’s college days. One day, Vita sent him a poem by Hafez. The best poetry is like sadness: vast, complex, and elusive. And in reading poetry, Javadizadeh shows, we can find lessons in mourning. I’ve thought about this essay many times since reading it last summer, and I’ll probably read it again and again for years to come. —SD
Jake Skeets | Emergence Magazine | June 22, 2023 | 3,901 words
Think about what it means to feel truly full when your physical and mental hunger is temporarily satisfied, and your stomach and mind are satisfied. Dinner poet Jake Skeets ponders these layers of resonance in his beautiful essay “The Butchering,” in which he prepares to kill a sheep for “kinauda.” . . .Roughly translated as Diné puberty ritual. ” For Skeets and members of his Indigenous community, the story is beautifully intertwined with the preparation of food that nourishes their families both physically and spiritually. Community members take turns teaching and learning, switching roles naturally and shamelessly in a safe space. Skeets reflects on the open-mindedness required for full participation. Sometimes he is a child who receives inherited knowledge from his family, and sometimes he becomes an uncle and sets an example for others. There is a slowness to Skeets’ writing, and a gentle pace in his essays as he educates us about what it takes to sustain communities and Indigenous ways of life. “The next time you slaughter, you’ll have your story to tell, your memories to share, your knowledge to offer. You’ll be out in the desert, under the night sky, with no sound for miles, and below you… Add another voice to the chorus on a night when there’s only the moon and the ground to remind you that everything is real. And it fills your belly. Through the wind, the air, and the inspiring twinkling stars, generations… “I heard the voice of all its knowledge, all its stories, all its beauty,” he wrote. Please make time for this work. It will ignite your sense of wonder, stimulate your curiosity and feed you in a truly satisfying way. —K.S.
Hanif Abdulraqb | paris reviews | October 16, 2023 | 3,922 words
Shortly after starting long lead, we’ve put together a reading list detailing some of our favorite pieces of video game writing from the past decade. I thought that if people can enjoy reviewing movies they haven’t seen yet, they can do the same thing with game criticism and journalism, even if they’ve never held a controller in their hands. Since then, that belief has remained steadfast for many years. But this year, a piece of work has stood the test of time and is powerful enough to earn a spot on that list.Mr. Hanif Abdulakub paris reviews Essay (also included in the new collection) critical hit) is nominally about the experience of playing red dead redemption 2, Rockstar Games’ critically acclaimed title set in the American West in 1899. However, the word “nominal” carries more weight than usual. In Abdulraqib’s capable hands, the game instead becomes a gateway to sadness and redemption, emptiness and loss. Some characters cannot be redeemed programmatically. Others can too.Character trajectory you That’s a completely different story. “If there’s a courtroom where I have to plead my case for glory and a rich afterlife, I hope those who listen to me will be interested in the nuances.” But who is to say?” Abdulraqb wrote. “Don’t think until you think.” Like the best works of art, this meditation unleashes the limitations of its medium to discover the universal truths and questions embedded within it. No virtual revolver required. —PR
Kayo Fan | New Yorker | June 5, 2023 | 6,197 words
Jiayang Fan was 25 years old when her mother was diagnosed with ALS. She writes: “The child became the mother’s future, and the mother became the child’s present, dwelling in her brain, blood, and bones.” This was her first personal work written by Hwang after her mother’s death. . This is a shocking story about the immigrant experience in America, illness, and the intimate and complex relationship between a mother and daughter. Fan depictions of the bedridden mother range from the exquisite to the grim to the satisfyingly bizarre. She is “a wreck in her own body” and her skin is like “rice paper” that will inevitably tear. Even a line detailing how literal poop is excreted from her mother’s body, a “rivulet” running down the “supple marble of her thighs,” manages to read beautifully. Fans write with vulnerability about caring for aging loved ones, about love and sacrifice, about two lives intertwined, and about the stories that are ultimately written about them. I have had to stop and collect myself many times as I think about my elderly mother and the decisions made over the course of our lives that have shaped us. “One creature disassembled into her two bodies,” writes a fan about their joint life. This is an extraordinary piece of writing that touches deep within my heart. —CLR
Melissa Johnson | Outside | July 18, 2023 | 4,273 words
The key sentences in this essay are: “Behold, my nightmare. A tick has bitten my vagina.” The incident, relayed with “The Majesty of Obi-Wan Kenobi Depicting the Destruction of the Planet Alderaan,” took place in 2017. Meanwhile, Melissa Johnson endures a five-day trek through northern Guatemala to attend the wedding of two former military women. (She recalls that during the Trump era, the middle of the jungle felt like a safer place for such a wedding.) Embark on this quest. Single at her 39 years of age, she is not only battling the mites of her own “sacred garden” but also her fear of losing her love and motherhood. As she trudges along her wet path, Ms. Johnson carries her worries as she ponders her own murky future. But by the time she was freed from her insect-infested jungle interior, she had come to accept the fact that she was an adventurer, someone comfortable with the unknown. This work has many layers: an adventure story, a portrait of people with names like “Tent Dawg,” and a thoughtful reflection on aging and motherhood. It’s also just plain funny. I loved traveling through the jungle with Johnson and loved the last sentence of her bio. I gave birth to a baby girl in March. —C.W.
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