The Lyric Essay as Resistance: Truth from the Margins

Lyric essayists challenge genre boundaries in creative nonfiction, allowing for new forms of writing, voices, and a literary canon. This anthology showcases the best lyric essays by prominent and emerging writers, exploring personal and political topics such as queer and trans identity, the American BIPOC experience, reproductive justice, belonging, grief, and more. The lyric essay is a subversive genre that offers a mode of expression for marginalized voices, demonstrating the power to bring about change both on the page and in our communities.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 277 pages
Publication date: 30 April 2023
Publisher: Wayne State University Press

The lyric essay is a genre that defies conventional boundaries, blending memoir, poetry, and prose to create a unique form of creative nonfiction. By pushing against the restrictions imposed by traditional genre categories, lyric essayists open up space for new forms of writing, new voices, and a new literary canon. This anthology showcases some of the finest lyric essays published in recent years by prominent and emerging writers.

Editors Zoë Bossiere and Erica Trabold position this collection within the ongoing struggle against genre convention, literary tradition, and the confines of dominant-culture spaces. These essays serve as sites of resistance, exploring deeply personal and political topics such as queer and trans identity, the American BIPOC experience, reproductive justice, belonging, grief, and more.

The lyric essay is characterized by its boldness, freedom, and ability to represent and resist. This collection highlights the lyric essay's inherent capacity for representation and subversion, celebrating it as a genre that offers a mode of expression for marginalized voices.

The Lyric Essay as Resistance features contemporary work by a diverse range of essayists, including Melissa Febos, Wendy S. Walters, Torrey Peters, Jenny Boully, Crystal Wilkinson, Elissa Washuta, Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, and many others. Their essays demonstrate the power of the lyric essay to bring about change, both on the page and in our communities.

In conclusion, the lyric essay is a genre that pushes against boundaries, creating space for new forms of writing, new voices, and a new literary canon. This anthology showcases some of the finest examples of the lyric essay, demonstrating its power to represent and resist, and to bring about change on the page and in our communities.

Weight: 316g
Dimension: 139 x 216 x 17 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780814349601