Jessica Lind Peterson

“Writing is wrestling. With time, with space, with memory. With confidence, sentences, syntax. With children, pets, partners, dinner. Essays have either gushed out of me, fire hydrant style, or I have coaxed and pulled at them painstakingly, like a parasitic worm from my ankle. There is no, this is how I write. There is only, I wrote this one this way. I have written late at night, laptop in bed, or sitting in the minivan waiting for basketball practice to end. I have dreamt whole essays, written them in my head while walking.