Join essayist and journalist Mark Wallace for a whirlwind tour through the history of the personal essay. We'll engage in a close reading of two knockout essays by two world-class writers (distributed before the beginning of class), we'll touch on essays and essayists from Michel de Montaigne to Joan Didion to Alexander Chee to Rachel Cusk and more, and we'll get into the nuts and bolts of drafting and polishing personal writing, so that you leave class newly energized and with a fresh set of tools for exploring personal stories, whether your own or those of the great writers of yesterday and today.