what follows focuses on Brenda's substantial knowledge of the lyric essay, gained through years of explorations in the form, as a writer, teacher, and editor. In late March 2007, Brenda Miller visited the campus of Michigan State University as the invited judge of the Department of English's annual creativewriting awards event. As part of her campus visit, Brenda visited a graduate creative-nonfiction workshop, where she graciously allowed herself to be interviewed. We had read Season of the

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... y and her textbook, Tell It Slant, in preparation for the visit and prepared pages and pages of questions for Brenda to answer. Luckily for Brenda, the interview period did not stretch into eternity, or we'd still be sitting in that overheated classroom with snow banked up to the windows. What follows is an edited version of that session. I'd like to identify the particular students whose questions Brenda fielded so 138 3 f o u r t h g e n r e adeptly: