Emerson Professor, His Student, Selected for Best Essays Anthology

Writing, Literature & Publishing Distinguished Professor Jerald Walker has had an incredible six essays appear in the prestigious Best American Essays anthology, including the upcoming 2024 edition.

But this recent inclusion is special. His former student, Nicole Graev Lipson, MFA ’22, also has an essay appearing in the anthology. If that’s not enough, Walker’s first creative writing teacher at the University of Iowa, Amy Margolis, is included in the book.   

Walker said when he heard Lipson was also in the anthology, he got goosebumps.

“It is so difficult to get in, and to have a student in at the same time is not something you can begin to fantasize about,” said Walker. “When I reflect on it, if it were to happen, it would be Nicole. She’s absolutely a superstar.”

Walker talks glowingly about Lipson.

“I’ve been teaching for more than 25 years. I’ve never met a student more talented than Nicole,” added Walker. “The first time I had her in class, I just knew that this was someone who would probably do less learning from me than I would learn from her, because she was absolutely on that level. I instantly saw her as a peer.”

The anthology’s guest editor, Wesley Morris, feels the same way as Walker. In Morris’ introduction to the anthology, he raves about Lipson’s essay, “As They Like It: Learning to Follow My Child”, calling it a “miracle of storytelling”.

“I don’t know how you write about that struggle [a child’s gender identity journey] as a parent any better than this great, big airing out,” wrote Morris.

Her essay is appearing in her forthcoming essay collection, Mothers and Other Fictional Characters, which will be published in March 2025. The essay originally appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review.

“The essay was really about absorbing, and reflecting on that experience as a mother and what it was like to try to adapt in real time,” said Lipson. “How does that shift our relationship? Does it shift how I mother this child?

The Time was Right

Lipson regards her Emerson College experience as “beyond measure”. She was in the thick of raising three children, 7 years old and younger. Writing and journalism weren’t new to her, and she relished the opportunity to focus on her writing. She appreciated that the MFA program provided a dedicated space and community of people just as serious about the written word as her.

“Being part of that community improved my writing. Being in workshops with students from different backgrounds and life experiences than I’ve had, and different ages, made me a better writer,” said Lipson. “It gave me a breadth of perspective that [I would not have had] if I were trying to write this book alone. I don’t think I’d have a book without Emerson. It provided me the conditions that I could turn my attention to the project fully.”

Lipson and Walker remain good friends and both think it’s incredible that writing from Walker’s class as part of her thesis became the core of her book. (Technically speaking, she actually wrote the essay appearing in the anthology the summer of 2022, shortly after the MFA program.)

“He’s an extraordinary teacher. I really felt my voice and confidence evolve while I was in his class,” said Lipson. “There’s an expression…: that you should write what scares you or write what might be uncomfortable. This particular essay was as terrifying as anything I’ve written.”

After a full draft, Lipson sent it to Walker, knowing she could trust that he’d provide honest feedback without jumping to negative conclusions from questions the essay raises.

“Her writing on a sentence-by-sentence level is phenomenal. Sometimes you pause because it takes your breath away,” said Walker. “She’s challenging you to think. She’s intellectual, insightful, and has the ability to weave her personal narratives with literary theory and cultural criticism.”

Walker said he provided minimal feedback because he felt her essays were fully formed, polished, and near perfect. He suggested how to improve a sentence or phrase with a tweak.

Lipson said her writing is about womanhood, motherhood, and cultural expectations.

Cultural expectations, like what we see on screens, is a topic discussed in Walker’s essay, “It’s Hard Out Here for a Memoirist”. The essay is about how Black identities are shaped by pop culture.

Walker said Lipson is the only former student he’s shown unpublished work. He wanted her to read and provide feedback. He sent her a draft of his essay and she loved it.

“When I was growing up in the ’70s, and the coming of age in the ’80s, we watched a lot of Blaxploitation. Super Fly, Shaft, Foxy Brown,” said Walker. “These movies would make me and my 15-, 16-, or 17-year-old friends want to emulate the characters and base our lives on the characters.”

Walker said at the time, the characters were envisioned as superheroes for Black kids growing up.

“The problem was …the characters often portrayed people who sold dope or were pimps, and committed crimes,” said Walker. “We wanted to emulate them, but they did things you wouldn’t want to emulate, and we were shaped by these movies.”

The essay’s title plays off the song “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” from the 2005 film Hustle & Flow.

“I’m showing how Black exploitation films influenced youth, but also talking about what it’s like to be a memoirist and to have a finite amount of material,” said Walker. “If you’re a longtime memoirist, you run out of material. Something that memoirists do when running thin, is they reveal more and more secrets, and personal stories they ordinarily wouldn’t share.”

Walker’s essay is in his new book, Magically Black and Other Essays, which was just released in September.

Walker found out his essay was selected for the anthology about an hour before Lipson. But he waited a day before telling Lipson because he wanted her to solely focus on her achievement.

Walker also reached out to Margolis, who he hasn’t seen in more than 25 years. She was his first creative writing teach at the University of Iowa when he was 19.

“[It’s incredible] that I’m in the anthology with my first creating writing teacher at Iowa, and the best student I’ve ever had at Emerson,” said Walker.

Walker and Lipson will celebrate the The Best American Essays 2024 with editor Kim Dana Kupperman and writer Brock Clarke on October 22 at the Brookline Booksmith from 7 to 8 pm. RSVP for the event by visiting Brookline Booksmith’s website.