Sixteenth century French writer Michel de Montaigne gave us the modern name for the squishy and uncertain genre of the essay. Montaigne called his personal writings essays, a noun turned into a verb from the old French, essayer, or to try or attempt. Every man has within himself the entire human condition, he wrote. In essence, Montaigne tells us that to essay is to attempt-through personal and individual story-to unite our seemingly disconnected sprawl of humanity. It is to put a spotlight on a singular story in an effort to speak for more than one voice. This collection of essays, written by Wake Forest University students enrolled in The Art of the Essay during Spring 2016, takes up the baton in the tradition of such very human attempting and figuring things out. In these essays, there are themes of regret, of racism and sexual assault and anger, of love and loss and nostalgia and crossing thresholds into adulthood. We’re wrestling with big ideas, with every human condition, but these essays’ power is in the intimate and the personal, as if someone is sitting next to us and whispering these stories into our ears.