RIVER TEETH REVISITED
Here at River Teeth, we love essays. We love reading essays, choosing essays, and writing essays. We love essays that feel urgent, essays we can’t put down, and essays that don’t turn away when the truth gets difficult or slippery.
We also like to think about how the best essays work—and that’s why we’re starting a new online feature: River Teeth Revisited. Guest writers will choose essays they love from the River Teeth or Beautiful Things archives, think about particular elements and strategies the writers use to transform real life into essays that speak to the core of the human experience, and provide the gift of a writing prompt at the end.
River Teeth Revisited is a celebration of the essay and, we hope, a jumping-off point for readers and writers, teachers and students, anyone who has something to say and wants a place to begin. Remember that if you have access to the ProjectMuse database, you can find every essay River Teeth published since Fall 2003 as free, downloadable pdfs. Not only is Project Muse a literary treasure trove for you, but it’s also that trickle of fresh water found in the cave at the center of the desert island for us: every download is a drop in our bucket and in this way we sustain the printing of River Teeth. (Which is to say, download away! If you’re teaching RT essays, share the link instead of uploading a pdf and keep that stream flowing.)
The idea for River Teeth Revisited was born in 2019, just before COVID-19, and we launched our first posts at the beginning of the pandemic, in a time when the whole world had lurched on its axis. As I told my creative nonfiction writing students on the last day we were together physically, before we headed home and began that first season of social distancing: “This is what we do. We observe and take notes. We watch closely for the patterns and connections that will help us to find meaning in a world that often doesn’t make sense. We think about what it means to be human. We’ve been training for this. We’ve got this.”
We’re still here. Still reading, still writing, still hoping that sharing stories might save us after all.
Thank you for being here!
Jill Christman (Editor)—& the whole River Teeth team
Check with your library to find out if you have an institutional subscription to Project Muse, and thus, River Teeth’s archives.
River Teeth Revisited Collection
Reading & Writing Essays with River Teeth & Beautiful Things: The Class
A special year-end message from River Teeth editor Jill Christman, including a downloadable sample curriculum for teaching essays using River Teeth Revisited.
Research and Trust in Renata Golden’s “Hammer Test”
by Jay Kibble and Ian Roesler
"When writing a personal essay, the world of the essay is you and your story, but sometimes we need to add research to our story to ground the reader in our experience; doing so also helps to ground the ethos of an essay."
Casting Characters: Introductions Through Observation in “Casting Lessons”
by Ethan Rice and Haley Stevens
"The first we meet is Egan Anderson, a fellow ranch hand with a love for fishing and a hope for love. By the end of the story, he has burrowed into our hearts..."
Complicating Chronology: Non-linear Narrative in “The Deer I Shot”
by Katie Mathew
"Nonlinear narratives move between times to stitch together a plot that does not need to be—and, in many cases, cannot be told correctly—in chronological order. The scenes set in the past are not flashbacks because they are scenes that act as plot points rather than context."
A Migrant Haunting: Tracing Spectral Memory in “Los Perdidos”
by Isabel Vazquez-Rowe
"The beginning immediately sets up this theme of absence, of the untold and that which is lost: in other words, it is a setting ripe for a haunting. But what exactly does it mean to haunt?"
Outline as Structure: Scaffolding in a “Dark Barn”
By Micah Gjeltema
"When telling a true story, the “worldbuilding” is predetermined—the world of the essay is you, the writer, and all that you know. The context is as vast as experience, and the scope of the real resists containment. How can it possibly be shaped?"
“Terrible Sanity” and the Art of Narrative
by Jake Demers
"In “Terrible Sanity” (20.2), Sam Pickering wanders through his own life, lamenting the present and celebrating the past. At once dismissive of sentimentality and profoundly personal, the essay stands as both an ode to education and a yearning for simpler times."
Anchoring and Questioning: Tracing Research and Reflection in Leonard Winograd’s “The Physics of Sorrow”
by Jessie Ferree
"Leonard Winograd’s essay “The Physics of Sorrow,” found in River Teeth 21.1, provides a perfect example of the proper roles of research and reflective questioning. Of research as a tool for structural framework and an attempt to make sense of the inexplicable mysteries of life."
“The Babysitter” by Anton DiSclafani: Writing the Braided Essay
by Shelbi Tedeschi
"A good braided essay takes a few sections—maybe a few different periods in one’s life for example—and weaves them together, back and forth, until the connections between the strands becomes clear..."
Pacing & Tempo Possibilities for Micro Essays: A Beautiful Things Analysis
by Valerie Weingart
"So much to say—take a deep breath—but then, all too soon, the word counter on the bottom of the document tells the sad truth: no words left! The breath's run out! So the essay wraps up too quickly, a last gasp at whatever truth the writer wanted to tell."
“Almost Thirty” by Rachel Weaver: A Balancing Act in Narrative Rhythm
by Rebekah Hoffer
"One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in writing creative nonfiction is that, when in doubt, sometimes the best way to write about a thing is to write about something else entirely..."
Allusion as Structure in Sean Ironman’s “And I Will Give You As Many Roast Bones As You Need”
by Jonah James
"Ironman’s allusions are spread throughout time. By intermingling Plato with Kipling and Robert Frost and Bruce Springsteen and Sigmund Freud, he can utilize them all individually and also collectively..."
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