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Why read and engage with Wes Phillipson’s blog?

There are millions of AI-generated articles, essays and profiles published online each month, as the amount of information in the world doubles every seven months. My posts are designed as antidotes to AI, and inch deep, mile wide writing. My inclination is to go deep into something that is - at face value - shallow or well-tread.

My hope is that you’ll read what I’ve written and share it with someone, maybe even re-read it, or start writing something of your own. Maybe you’ll engage me in conversation about one piece or another.

The underlying idea behind everything I write is: “The Anti-Essay.”

Too much of what we teach in public/private schools and colleges (in English and history classrooms) is based on the 5 paragraph essay - something Harvard invented over 100 years ago (if the urban legend is to be believed). Relatively few exciting conversations, ideas, or inspirations have come from student-written DBQs, or from essays assigned on novels or plays.

The Anti-Essay is singularly focused on thwarting traditional approaches to essay writing, while exploring longform creative prose, providing models and (hopefully) some inspiration.