Hello.
I'm William Fitzpatrick, a nonfiction writing teacher, and for the past seven years I was an English professor and director of the writing program at a top-tier research university in South Korea, where I taught academic writing to scientists and engineers.
My work—on Writer Science and elsewhere—is built around a single conviction: that writing is an extension of thought, not just a vehicle for communication.
That belief might sound pretty straightforward. But it has a ton of implications for the way we think about writing, especially since the advent of AI.
I've spent my career helping people write more clearly by thinking more clearly first.
This is Essay Club.
The essay is the most honest form of writing we have.
Unlike fiction, it can't hide behind invented characters.
Unlike academic writing, it can't hide behind methodology.
The essayist walks out into the open and says: here is what I noticed, here is what I thought, here is what I'm still not sure about.
Done well, it's one of the most difficult things a writer can attempt.
Done badly, it's what most of us were taught in school.
I've spent years watching smart people produce lifeless essays because they were taught to argue a thesis rather than pursue an idea. They learned to conclude before they began, to arrange evidence rather than follow curiosity. The result is writing that is technically correct and completely inert.
Essay Club exists to unlearn that.
What we'll do
Each week we'll read an essay together, and I'll offer a close reading focused on craft:
- how the writer earns their opening
- how they manage the turn
- how they know when to stop.
The goal in my reading—which may be different from yours—is to understand not just what the essay says, but what it does and how it goes about doing it.
I'll also offer writing prompts and editing exercises drawn from the essays we read, with occasional looks into my own revision process.
Reading and writing are not separate activities. The best readers become better writers. The best writers are always, still, learning to read.
The comments section is where a lot of the real work happens.
Come ready to disagree, to complicate, to say yes, but.
When and how much
Essay Club goes out every Sunday.
Free subscribers receive the reading and my opening remarks.
Paid subscribers get the full craft analysis, writing prompts, and access to the comments thread, where the conversation tends to be the best part.
The cost is modest. The essays are free.
The only real requirement is that you show up willing to read slowly.
We're not here to consume essays. We're here to learn to think with them.
I'll see you Sunday.