“After my mother died, I already resented the responsibilities that spilled over from her hands into mine. Not only would I become skilled at performing duties beyond my age, but I would learn how to quietly carry my grief. That became its own kind of shame.”

Forthcoming DEBUT Memoir

Before tragedy disrupted her childhood in rural Michigan, Essmaker daydreamed of one day leaving her family’s single-wide trailer and moving to a big city to be a writer. But just after her tenth birthday, Essmaker’s mother died suddenly, shattering her family’s world.

Left to care for her widowed father and cognitively disabled twin brother, Essmaker was torn between her desires and the needs of her family. What would her mother want for her? Only after Essmaker confronts the question of motherhood and is faced with assuming guardianship of her brother in her late thirties, can she begin to understand the answer to that question.

Essmaker unflinchingly invites readers into the complex inner world of a grieving girl, rebellious teenager, and ambitious young woman wrestling with how much she can—and should—carry. With tension and hope, Essmaker takes herself, and us, on a journey from grief and powerlessness to agency and belonging, culminating back where it all began.

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Publications

Blue (essay) | Roxane Gay's The Audacity Emerging Writer Essay Series

The Eye Is the First Circle (Essay) | Finalist for Sewanee Review sixth annual Fiction, Poetry, and Nonfiction Contest

past writing

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Guide to Self-reinvention

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