During my master's program, I wrote a dervish essay—a hybrid form of creative nonfiction known for its fluid prose style, use of anaphora and repetition, and brevity. Dervish essays are typically written in one sentence. Dervish essays, like a stream of consciousness, are uninterrupted, mirroring the incessant nature of human thought. In “The Mania of Language: Robert Vivian’s Dervish Essay,” Theresa Goenner (2021) describes dervish essays as having a “journey-like quality”; they tend to “whirl around a particular subject, whether concrete or abstract.” In my essay, I wrote about my experience attending a concert after going to a March for Our Lives protest in Kansas City. I explored the connection between music and feeling—how music helps us survive moments of grief. In particular, the essay weaved around the subject of setting; I used repetition to depict both The Record Bar, the concert’s venue, and Theis Park, the site of the protest. The essay is structured as one continuous sentence, where I used ampersands to break up each thought, making it easier to follow. Creating this essay was a refreshing experience because I was able to write outside of my disciple. In a dervish essay, you break all the rules of technical writing; the entire piece is essentially one, very long run-on sentence. This assignment gave me an opportunity to express myself creatively, without worrying about grammar. Robert Vivian (2013), credited with inventing the dervish essay, notes that these essays “court nonsensicality and are driven by a deep inward music.” I am glad I had the opportunity to embrace this “nonsensicality”; it allowed me to experience freedom in my writing and gain new insights about a unique genre. Writing this essay helped me understand the importance of creative writing, as it gave me a space to let loose and explore other forms of writing. References Goenner, T. (2021). The mania of language: Robert Vivian’s dervish essay. Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies, 8(1). https://www.assayjournal.com/theresa-goenner-8203the-mania-of-language-robert-vivians-dervish-essay-assay-81.html Vivian, R. (2013). Crow ceremony and stumble: Dervish essays. Numéro Cinq, 4(9). http://numerocinqmagazine.com/2013/09/01/crow-ceremony-stumble-dervish-essays-robert-vivian/