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You know when you can tell a book is going to save you? That’s how I felt halfway through the introduction of The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative by Vivian Gornick. She describes the time she spent in Egypt absorbing everything on assignment for the book that would be In Search of Ali Mahmoud: An American Woman in Egypt, published in 1973. Rather than being in control of the story like she was used to, from her journalism work, Gornick said, “…I was in a free fall, confused by a kind of writing whose requirements I did not understand but whose power I felt jerked around by.”

The conclusion Gornick came to, and illustrates in the book through analyzing essay and memoir, is that, “Every work of literature has both a situation and a story. The situation is the context or circumstance, sometimes the plot; the story is the emotional experience that preoccupies the writer: the insight, the wisdom, the thing one has come to say.”

I’m working on an essay, have been working on it for over three years at this point, and am once again feeling “jerked around.” Gornick’s book has lived on my shelf for some time, waiting. After a writing session that was productive but maddeningly circular, I picked it up and began reading. What she described was so obviously applicable to my work, I felt a small cheer erupt inside me. The work still needs to be done, but here is a guide, thank the writing gods!

Thank you for reading this newsletter while I’m jerked around by writing! Subscribe or forward this email to a friend (or enemy) to support my endeavors.

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