Month/Year of Graduation

5-2024

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (B.A.)

Department

English

First Advisor

Jody Keisner

Abstract

My honors capstone project expands the creative work of a major writing assignment in English 3170: Successful Freelance Magazine Writing, which was modeled after Susan Shapiro’s “Humiliation Essay.” Shapiro’s signature assignment encourages students to write about an embarrassing or upsetting moment with the aim to force sincerity and humility. She writes, “It encourages students to shed vanity and pretension and relive an embarrassing moment that makes them look silly, fearful, fragile or naked.” The humiliation essay, she claims, often leads to publication because the conflict of the assignment inspires writers, and the narrator’s self-insight that occurs during the process of writing is appealing to editors and readers. My Humiliation Essay, “Poor Thing” is about the narrator's experience with a date gone wrong, which inspired considerations of personal growth and identity.

After I completed the essay, I wrote a reflection concerning the writing process and information on publication. Sections include goals I had in mind writing the piece, what the publication process is like, and why one would feel incentivized to publish as an undergraduate. I apply some of these concepts to the essay I wrote and discuss my future goals as well.

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