“Well, sometimes I use my inexperience or lack of knowledge as the drama of the essay. The essay becomes a kind of biography of an idea — how it reveals itself and comes to a fullness. The essay can begin with inexperience, and as it teaches the reader, so also it teaches the writer. There’s something very exciting about that kind of progress.”
— From an interview with Richard Rodriquez.
The quote made me think about some of your exploratory essays, where some of you are starting from scratch, and where the reader is learning along with you.
Rodriquez was one of my favorite writers in college:
— Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez
— Days of Obligation: An Argument with My Mexican Father
— Brown: The Last Discovery of America
— Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography