Classes
The Beauty of the Braided Essay, University of North Carolina-Asheville, Spring 2024
We explored the shared space between experiences and obsessions. A braided essay can be about cooking pie with your mother, the science of a pumpkin harvest, and the cooking habits you hold at present; with those threads, it could be an essay about heartbreak, intimacy, jubilance, or attention, among other themes. We read braided essays by Katie Karnehm-Esh, Jo Ann Beard, Austyn Gaffney, and Daniel Elder. We spent time exploring three of the commonly used braided themes. I led in-class writing exercises, and there was always time to share at the end of class, if desired. The last two weeks of class operated as a workshop, so everyone came to class having read portions of their classmate’s essays and were prepared to discuss them. By the end of this class, everyone had a strong working draft of a braided essay.