A student at Hamline University named Julie Bach wrote to me with questions about my latest book, Awkward: A Detour (Bellevue Literary Press) which she is studying in a graduate creative writing seminar there. Julie wanted to know how I came to write a book on awkwardness, and if I considered the book a “lyric essay.” After answering her, it seemed to me that my meditations on “lyric essay,” especially, might be worth sharing blog-wise.