Genre: Creative Nonfiction

“Where would we be without the women who plant their feet, who set their chins, who step forward and never fear the dark?” asks Laird Hunt in his Literary Hub essay “In Gratitude for the Fierce Women of the World.” Hunt describes his high school girlfriend and his grandmother, who both served as fierce female inspiration for him and his novels which center on women who “are making their own story, their own names, their own games.” Write a personal essay about a woman who has had a powerful presence in your life, who inspired you to persevere, to overcome obstacles, to not back down. 

In the chapter titled “The One Where Two Women Got Married” in the nostalgic retrospective I’ll Be There For You: The One About Friends (Hanover Square Press, 2018), journalist Kelsey Miller writes about the prevalence of homophobic jokes and the depiction of the lesbian couple in the television show Friends. Looking back twenty years later, Miller explores the ways in which the series was a product of its time. Choose a television series that aired ten or twenty years ago that you used to watch, and find a clip or episode to view. Write a personal essay about how your perception of the show has changed with hindsight. Consider what your own opinions of the show were when you watched it the first time around, and then examine how your perspective might have evolved over the years with the culture.