The essay form is new for Becky Bradway. Before this she wrote stories. Well, maybe she still does write stories. She isn't exactly sure. Like her life transition in the essay, she is in a parallel transition as a writer. Of "The Better Porch" she says, "I was at a point in my life where I was making a transition from being working class to becoming a professional." Of her writing she says, "This is sort of my transition piece, I think. I'm still trying to seek out where I want to go."

Bradway has published 32 pieces of fiction in various literary magazines. This is her third published essay, and the first one she wrote that wasn't a requirement. She likes the new challenge of examining, researching and drawing conclusions about the world. "I composed it in a similar way that I always compose a story. It is still composed in scenes, there's a lot of dialogue and little explication." Her past work has tended to be highly stylized. "Now I'm not so much looking for the pretty artifact."

"The Better Porch" was motivated by a personal struggle. "My family was very working class and I was going to be a professor. I was in a state of shock over how dramatically different these cultures were and trying to work that through as well as my sense of nostalgia and loss at being in a different kind of life. I think I actually had some guilt associated with leaving this behind."

While this personal struggle motivated her writing, so did the wish to describe a way of life about which Americans don't like to be faced. "Americans don't like to think about class. I think there's a lot of discrimination and misunderstanding. She wanted to make these people come alive as having everyday human concerns. Ending with "and he will fix it and fix it again," she was commenting on her view of working class men "who really can't make it in this world in a way men are supposed to and I think they get squashed."

If she were using this piece to teach she would use it as an example of form, as a demonstration of fictional techniques in nonfiction material. "Students really have a hard time understanding how to do a scene or how a scene can bring a situation to life. Since this piece is so scene-oriented, I would try to show how different points can be made without coming out and saying what those points are." If she were to write it today, Bradway says she might go into more depth about her background instead of staying so much in the present.

Bradway is interested in writing social commentary, work that involves a more overtly persuasive element. She wants to make a case; she wants to inform and convince. "Here I did have the purpose of the essayist. I wanted to take some kind of cultural situation and look at it. I was trying to persuade while also reflecting for myself and trying to put things together."

Bradway considers "The Better Porch" as a blend of personal essay and creative nonfiction. "I see a personal essay as reflective or maybe as a philosophical reflective discussion. I see creative nonfiction as having far more immediate scene-making techniques with a more journalistic tendency. As examples I would call Annie Dillard a personal essayist and Hunter S. Thompson a creative nonfiction writer." While this is how she sees it, she always explains to her students that, as with stereotypes of people, when it comes to compartmentalizing writing, there is a great deal of ambiguity.

Karen Rosica