Day 7: "Woodstove"

Brock Clarke (Five Points, Spring 2023)

In this twenty-two-day series, we are counting down the days to publication (October 22, 2024) with a brief passage from each of the twenty-two essays included in The Best American Essays 2024. These excerpts were curated by Best American Essays Editorial Assistant Cheyenne Paterson and are presented in the order of the volume’s table of contents.

“I’ve told this story [about a dead dog] to my fiction writing students, under the principle that if something is in your story, then it must have multiple purposes. It seems like good advice, to me, but my students seem to have no use for it. That’s fine. I’m used to them ignoring me. I sometimes even ignore my own advice. For instance, for years I’ve been telling my students that they’re not allowed to write about their dead dogs.”

Brock Clarke, “Woodstove,” Five Points, Spring 2023.