While bumming around the Brevity website, I chose to look at the more current published nonfiction pieces, because I like looking at things that are relevant. I found a piece titled, “160 Things That Scare Me” by Jill Kolongowski published January 17th, 2020.
This piece stuck out to me for several reasons. The first reason being the sheer number of things that supposedly scare people that helped write this piece. It shows how humans are scared of so so much, it made me feel more normal. I also love the idea of collaboration at the college academic level. The fact that this piece was written by people ages 18-32 is really beautiful. No matter what ages everyone has similar fears. The flow of the piece is very fun to read. I also was stressed out reading it because I kept reading it faster and more existential. The bad stuff never ended it just kept going and going, it started on fear and ended on fear. I like how it starts as a more paragraph format with a list style, then just a list, and then back to a paragraph esq. style. This made the piece have an interesting structure. I relate to this work immensely because I have great fears, not 160, but I have never counted them up. Another thing in regard to reliability is the fact that I could do a similar piece with all of my peers in a certain class, or my student organization. The structure is accessible and relatable. I like how on Brevity, people can comment on the pieces, and the commenters range in age and gender, but everyone is always so moved by the work. It’s nice to see other people appreciate good art and writing.
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