2023 in essays
Imagine an essay collection that masterfully rendered 2023 in peak essay form? Compositionally, it fuses memoir and journalist and creative writing, but each essay is anchored in something that is anchored to the year. It has timely topics that tap into timeless themes.
So it might include: our first year with ChatGPT, the 10/7 Gaza attacks on Israel, the Burning Man weather disaster, Barbenheimer, the death of Henry Kissinger, the Brittney Spears / Pope memoirs, the evolution from Twitter to X, the Rome memes, the Titan submersible explosion, the Hollywood writer’s strike, the Hawaiian fires, the collapse of Silicon Valley banks, the Florida book bans, etc.
These are not articles. They have a human at the center, and the current event becomes a microcosm to understand something perennial. It is not reportage, but flash memoirs from the cultural frontline.