My essay, “Esto Perpetua,” which first appeared in Ecotone, was selected as a Notable Essay in The Best American Essays 2013. This is my fourth Notable Essay (the others were given the nod in 2007, 2008, and 2009.) It’s a pleasant surprise to find your own name in there brushing up against other “S” authors like David Shields, Lauren Slater, and David Sedaris, but I am also reminded of something Anne Fadiman said in her Introduction to The BAE in 2003: “What exactly was that list of ‘Notable Essays’ in the back (in which I myself had been sequestered for years before finally making it into the sacred precincts of the collection itself)?” Sequestered. Yes. But she gives one hope. Maybe you have to survive the Notable Bootcamp for a few years before being invited into the Officer’s Club. At any rate, I’ll take it. There are worse ways to be sequestered.
brandon r. schrand 