Missed Trains and Gender Pains: Nonfiction as a Means to Finding the Self

By Taylor Grothe

Writing has always been an instrumental tool in learning about who I am as an individual. As a fiction writer, writing nonfiction essays is a new craft for me; I only really began about a year ago, meditating on parenthood, the themes of living through grief and loss, and the potential selves left behind at junctions of an earlier life, like trains missed at their stations.

Through the essay, I gained access to multiple sides of myself, sides that hadn’t seen the light...