essay, essai, assay

The essay, for many, exists as a form of writing associated with assessment and examination that bears little resemblance to its original literary expression of risk-taking: to "essayer" (from "essai"), to take thinking on an adventure, to "assay" truth however contingent. Paul Heilker suggests that we stop thinking of the essay as a thing or a mode; instead, we should treat it as a verb, "a form of transgressive symbolic action in which intellectual freedom is enacted as a movement". At Dundee we've started teaching creative essaying as an activity, believing that this might be one important way the academy addresses not only itself, the disciplines within its walls, but the world outside. As we're all learning to write again, here are some marvellous work all produced by our creative writing students essaying.

Learning to Speak

language – mass noun 1. The method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way. 2. A system of communication used by a particular country or community. 3. The style of a piece of writing or speech.   The version of me that exists Read More

Unfixed

When you are a child born in one place and raised in another, ‘home’ is complicated. Even more so, when ‘home’ is a series of couches, hotel rooms, borrowed apartments, and rented houses. ‘Home’ is something that belongs to your mother, gifted to you through pictures and stories, the folklore of her youth. It is Read More

Essay Fragments

Stranger he sits on the very edge of the bench legs crossed hands on his knees fingers strongly knitted together his whole body bends to the front it seems as he was just about to get up and go but forgot about it his hair is grey almost white his skin is tired nose off-colour Read More

Sgùrr Fiona & Other Reflections On Walking The Land

My first attempt was on the 4th of February 2017. We arrived at the bothy and settled onto the wooden slats for the night in a hut that sleeps ten. I think there were fifteen of us. The next morning’s cold crept into our sleeping bags, and the bustle of rucksack-packing and lunch-making sprung life Read More

Autumn

‘I believe that all leaves, even grasses and mosses, acquire brighter colours just before their fall.’ Henry D. Thoreau The leaves are beginning to blush. Their green palms are speckled with pink and orange, colours just threatening to take over. The trees’ petals are now more the yellow of dawn than jade. Little tints of Read More

The Punch and the Pen

ROUND  1   I’m greeted by the acrid stench of sweat, the whirring of blurred skipping ropes spinning. Whips, cracks, and grunts echo; defenceless leather bags hang at the mercy of those that pound at them. From the depths of the hall, voices rise above the clamour, shouting instructions, followed by an artillery of punches Read More

Scraps

It’s my turn to present. Mrs Dover is in her usual position – lounging on a desk, elbows resting on her knees, hands clasped – she leans forward, ears primed for grammatical error. My arm shakes as I hold up my book. ‘This is one of my favourites,’ I utter, ‘Ariel, by Sylvia Plath’. Dover, Read More