Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Writer's Digest

    Delightful Observation

    May 08, 2019 5 minutes
    BY CASSANDRA LIPP

    While walking along a path in Italy that brought him joy, Ross Gay suddenly thought that it would be a fun intellectual experiment to write a short essay about a pleasant experience every day for one year, beginning with his birthday. By the time he had turned a year older, Gay wrote essays about receiving high fives from strangers, ambiguous signage, flowers in the hands of statues, nicknames and more.

    These essays became The Book of Delights (February 2019, Algonquin Books), the follow-up to his poetry collection Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, which won the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award.

    Gay sat down with WD while promoting to talk about what inspired his book, following the movement of thought in drafts and writing

    You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

    More from Writer's Digest

    Writer's Digest2 min read
    Characterizing Through Relationships
    Today is her forty-fifth birthday. She finds it hard to believe. Once she’d been young and she’d thought forty-five would come slow and impossible. She’d thought forty-five would be another world. But it came fast and it’s not what she thought it wou
    Writer's Digest3 min read
    Poetic Asides
    Writing poetry is very helpful for processing emotions. Fall head over heels in love? Write a poem. Tumble down the stairs of a broken heart? Write a poem. Get in a heated argument? Write a poem. Dealing with the aftermath of a tragic event? Write a
    Writer's Digest1 min read
    Write It Out
    One of the things articles in this issue challenge writers to do is to express a character’s emotions without specifically naming the emotion (i.e., not writing: “He was angry”). Write a few sentences about each image that will show readers what emot

    Related Books & Audiobooks