Sometimes it seems that I have spent most of my MFA in nonfiction listening to professors and students alike rave about Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo. While I have yet to read her acclaimed narrative nonfiction account of
Before I was a nonfiction writer in Columbia’s Graduate Writing Program, I was a student of Russian Language and Literature at Wellesley College. I started taking Russian 101 the fall of my first-year – sick of the Latin I could
For the full essay, see it on Fiction Advocate. Originally published on February 27, 2014. --- I met the other Elizabeth Bartels at a family reunion in New Jersey when I was in middle school. I had long been used to sharing my
For the full essay, see it on Vitamin W. Originally published on February 14, 2014. --- I went to MoMA PS1 the other day because I felt guilty. I have been living in New York for the better part of two years now
First, a confession: I never finished reading Elif Batuman’s essay collection, The Possessed: Adventures With Russian Books and the People Who Read Them. The book came out my senior year of undergrad, when I was already drowning in Russian literature
I can’t pinpoint an exact moment when I decided I wanted to write. It was an idea regularly reinforced throughout my childhood, adolescence, and adult life: reading Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech for the first time, writing a letter
This just in: Ted Conover, nonfiction writer famous for his immersion and undercover journalist, is cooler than your dad. Sorry, Rich Bartels, I still love you very much, but last night at the Columbia Graduate Writing Program’s Nonfiction Dialogue, Ted
For the full essay, see it on Ploughshares. Originally published on January 29, 2014. --- Usually, when writing, I practice what I call The Withholding Method: You wake up—time to write. But first you want coffee. STOP. Have you written a sentence yet? Write
Post originally appeared on Wellesley Underground on October 12, 2013. --- When I started in the MFA Writing Program at Columbia University’s School of the Arts last fall, I was pummeled with the names of more writers than I knew existed. I