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Congratulations to MFA alum Matthew Hawkins on their listing in Best American Essays in "Notable Essay and Literary Nonfiction of 2021" for (Summer/Fall 2021).

Hawkins' essay was also awarded the TSR Nonfiction Prize.

An excerpt from :

At nineteen, I’ve spent my entire life trying to convince people I’m nothing like my mother. I’ve dropped out of college after only two years, I’m mentally unstable, and I’ve recently moved back into her house. I have two jobs. The first: manager of a run-down private pool. I sit with the guards at a picnic table while one exceptionally dorky kid flops around the shallow end. We take turns discussing what we think would be the best way to die. One of the guards says in your sleep. Another says prescription overdose. I tell them there’s no good way to die. No matter what those listicles say, it will be painful. I tell them everything is painful. We sit in silence and watch the kid tangle a noodle around his limbs in an attempt to keep himself above the water. 

Check out Hawkins' , follow them on Twitter at , and check out some of their other work at their .  

photo by via Pixabay; licensed under