Before we imagined that COVID-19 would upend all of our planning for the summer 2020 issue of Wellesley, we had scheduled a story about a popular course, "The World of Emily Dickinson," taught by English professor, poet, and New Yorker critic Dan Chiasson. Our writer, Catherine O'Neill Grace, signed up to audit the class, and planned to write a feature about it, focusing on its academic content and students' experience, while staying within the objective reporter position. Once it became clear that COVID-19 was sending everyone home, and necessitating a major pedagogical shift for the professor, we invited the writer to set aside her objective stance and write the story from a first-person perspective. The writer discovered and shared that closely engaging with one of the greatest minds in American letters could offer solace in the unexpected silences that the lockdown brought into our lives. The story became—in a small, quiet way—an antidote to the pandemic.
From the Judges
We appreciated the efforts both the author and the editors go to making this impactful for the readership, and adapting to the pandemic.
