If you only got time for one of the essays in the CNF Canon, make it this one.
One cant predict link rot, and the only place where i can find the 1983 essay is this tumblr blog post. Much thanks to them! The only other location i found was a pdf scan of an excerpt for an AP english exam. Like the canon article says, these essays are among other things really teachable. It’s wild to go to Nancy Mairs’s writing voice after WCW — this is decidedly un-experimental; the writing is tight, clear, emotionally mature and well organized. It is this direct and confident quality that struck me the most, and provoked an intensely personal response.