The Best American Essays is a yearly anthology of the very best essays published in the United States during the prior year. The guest editor for 2023, Vivian Gorick, renowned essayist and celebrated feminist writer, has chosen twenty essays out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form. Among them is an essay by local author, Jillian Barnet. The Best American Essays anthology will be released in November. Jillian will read from her essay, “Any Kind of Leaving,” at Buffalo Street Books on November 18 at 1:00 p.m. This essay was one of the first selected by Gornick to appear in the anthology. Robert Atwan, editor of the Best American series wrote, “I loved reading it.”

Jillian Barnet’s poems and essays have appeared in North American Review, New Letters, Nimrod, Image, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts, is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and the author of the poetry chapbook, Falling Bodies. Having taught writing and literature at Pennsylvania State University and Chatham University, she now lives on a tiny farm in the Finger Lakes where she is at work on a memoir.