Writing in Place

Students in Cynthia Zarin’s spring 2020 creative writing workshop, “Writing About Place,” never expected to write their final essays from lockdown, stuck in various apartments and childhood homes across the country. The class spent the first half of the semester writing about places they'd visited, routes they'd taken, and campus buildings with opportunity for exploration. For the final assignment, Professor Zarin asked her English 478 students to reflect on their current realities with essays entitled “Writing in Place.” These essays deal with how to process and describe loss as it occurs, how to discuss personal sadness despite feeling grateful, and above all, how to find joy in unexpected places.

WRITING IN PLACE: Couched In

  She claimed it was something in the walls. “Something smells off,” my mom told me over the phone, “when I step into your room.” […]

WRITING IN PLACE: Ma Nishtana

A few weeks ago, my family celebrated Passover. We ate matzo ball soup, roast chicken and potatoes — familiar foods of my childhood. But small […]

WRITING IN PLACE: Interrupting Sameness

I’ve rarely had this time to myself. College life did not condition me for long hours spent immobile, with no obligations after 7 p.m. My […]

WRITING IN PLACE: Since Music Last Filled This House

On moonlit nights, howls ricochet across the hills and pierce the quiet. A soloist begins with one long note, soon joined by a second howler, […]

WRITING IN PLACE: Dream Life

In elementary school, I walked to school with a group of kids in my neighborhood. A different parent accompanied us each day of the week. […]

WRITING IN PLACE: Livin’ on my Own

The last few days I have slept with my blinds up and the curtains open. The fifth floor of my building at the corner of […]

WRITING IN PLACE: Where We’ve Been Before

I have not been home to Nashville in the spring for many years, not since I left for school three years ago, not since before […]

WRITING IN PLACE: COVID Nights

I grab my coffee from Starbucks and rush out the door. I walk past a man playing his saxophone and couples sitting outside of a […]

WRITING IN PLACE: Novel Habits

The week after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, I moved into an Airbnb on Capitol Hill, just 30 minutes from my house in Maryland. It […]