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Betwixt-and-Between: Essays on the Writing Life
Jenny Boully’s essays are ripe with romance and sensual pleasures, drawing connections between the digression, reflection, imagination, and experience that characterizes falling in love as well as the life of a writer. Literary theory, philosophy, and linguistics rub up against memory, dreamscapes, and fancy, making the practice of writing a metaphor for the illusory nature of experience. Betwixt and Between is, in many ways, simply a book about how to live.
140 pages, Paperback
Published April 3, 2018
38 people are currently reading
680 people want to read
About the author
Jenny Boully
18 books84 followersJenny Boully is the author of four books, most recently not merely because of the unknown that was stalking toward them (Tarpaulin Sky Press). Her other books include The Books of Beginnings and Endings (Sarabande Books), [one love affair]* (Tarpaulin Sky Press), and The Body: An Essay (Essay Press, first published by Slope Editions). Her chapbook of prose,Moveable Types, was released by Noemi Press. Her work has been anthologized in The Best American Poetry, The Next American Essay, Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present, and other places. Born in Thailand, she was reared in Texas by parents who farm and fish. She attended Hollins University, where she double majored in English and philosophy and then went on to earn her MA in English Criticism and Writing. At the University of Notre Dame, she earned an MFA with a poetry concentration. She earned a Ph.D. in English from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She lives in Chicago, Illinois with her husband and daughter and teaches at Columbia College Chicago.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
January 5, 2019
WOW!
I wanted a book about writing and what it is like, but I got so so much more! This is a book that is about writing, but not about writing. More importantly, it is about life and emotion and love. I adore Jenny Boully's writing, it is both beautiful and relatable. Betwixt-and-Between felt so raw to me. Jenny put so much of herself and her life onto the page that I felt like I got to know her, got to connect to her on a level that not many books like this give. It felt like fiction and read like poetry, but with elements of non-fiction put in. I don't know. This is a hard book to describe. It kind of had the vibes of Bluets by Maggie Nelson, the parts about love and loss. The tone of the writing was similar in that regard, but Jenny has this distinct style that is hard to define and that I have never seen before. I really wasn't feeling this book at times. Then I don't know what happened, but I got really really into what she was talking about and felt like I could relate to her and what she has been through, things relating to writing and life. The connection that I felt really heightened how I felt about this book and my interest in it.
Some parts are very confusing and the title and blurb are very misleading. I was thrown off at because I wanted to read about writing and this had not as much of that. I eventually felt that even though it wasn't about writing all of the time, it was still a good-written and powerful book. As a whole, it wasn't as connected as it should've been. Some sections felt out of place. I didn't enjoy some sections, because her style was so hard to get used to at times and I found myself lost and confused while reading certain chapters. I sometimes didn't know what was real, what had happened to her, and what hadn't.
I enjoyed the parts about writing and the parts about her life. It felt like a memoir when she talked about her life and I think that would have been better in a different book, but I enjoyed them nonetheless. Some chapters just didn't belong or make sense to be put in this.
I wanted to share my favorite sections:
-The Page as Artifact: Beautiful and insightful thoughts about the creation of poetry.
-Some parts of Movable Types were relatable and things I have experienced before.
-On the EEO Genre Sheet: Interesting way to apply the EEO genre sheet to a life. I really like the metaphor used here and liked hearing Jenny's experience of being mixed-race. Even though, I am not mixed-race there was something that resonated with me in her words.
-The Poet's Education: Similar themes as On the EEO Genre Sheet, but more about her growing up and how she got into poetry. I thought that was interesting to learn about. I always love to hear how authors got into writing.
-On Beginnings and Endings: Good ending chapter! Really demonstrated insights and ideas on writing/reading beginnings and endings that I haven't thought before, but have felt in some way. Make me think.
I wanted a book about writing and what it is like, but I got so so much more! This is a book that is about writing, but not about writing. More importantly, it is about life and emotion and love. I adore Jenny Boully's writing, it is both beautiful and relatable. Betwixt-and-Between felt so raw to me. Jenny put so much of herself and her life onto the page that I felt like I got to know her, got to connect to her on a level that not many books like this give. It felt like fiction and read like poetry, but with elements of non-fiction put in. I don't know. This is a hard book to describe. It kind of had the vibes of Bluets by Maggie Nelson, the parts about love and loss. The tone of the writing was similar in that regard, but Jenny has this distinct style that is hard to define and that I have never seen before. I really wasn't feeling this book at times. Then I don't know what happened, but I got really really into what she was talking about and felt like I could relate to her and what she has been through, things relating to writing and life. The connection that I felt really heightened how I felt about this book and my interest in it.
Some parts are very confusing and the title and blurb are very misleading. I was thrown off at because I wanted to read about writing and this had not as much of that. I eventually felt that even though it wasn't about writing all of the time, it was still a good-written and powerful book. As a whole, it wasn't as connected as it should've been. Some sections felt out of place. I didn't enjoy some sections, because her style was so hard to get used to at times and I found myself lost and confused while reading certain chapters. I sometimes didn't know what was real, what had happened to her, and what hadn't.
I enjoyed the parts about writing and the parts about her life. It felt like a memoir when she talked about her life and I think that would have been better in a different book, but I enjoyed them nonetheless. Some chapters just didn't belong or make sense to be put in this.
I wanted to share my favorite sections:
-The Page as Artifact: Beautiful and insightful thoughts about the creation of poetry.
-Some parts of Movable Types were relatable and things I have experienced before.
-On the EEO Genre Sheet: Interesting way to apply the EEO genre sheet to a life. I really like the metaphor used here and liked hearing Jenny's experience of being mixed-race. Even though, I am not mixed-race there was something that resonated with me in her words.
-The Poet's Education: Similar themes as On the EEO Genre Sheet, but more about her growing up and how she got into poetry. I thought that was interesting to learn about. I always love to hear how authors got into writing.
-On Beginnings and Endings: Good ending chapter! Really demonstrated insights and ideas on writing/reading beginnings and endings that I haven't thought before, but have felt in some way. Make me think.
Read
April 20, 2018This book isn't what I expected as I thought it'd be essays on writing, but that's not exactly what it is. I enjoyed it nonetheless. Jenny Boully is a beautiful writer.
May 31, 2018
I didn't feel this cohered as a collection. I loved the essays and parts on writing. The other essays on the ends of love affairs didn't work as well for me.
April 2, 2024
a beautifully written hybrid piece that provides a lot of insight on creative nonfiction and the liminal space we occupy in storytelling as we negotiate truth as what happened and truth as what we retrospectively tell ourselves to make sense of our lives -- enjoyed the prose though i wished later essays were more reminiscent of the linguistic/theoretical nature of the introduction. felt a little alienating at some points but i generally enjoyed it! favorite essay was "fragments".
January 11, 2019
Jenny Boully is a magical creature. I loved "Betwixt-and-between: Essays on the Writing Life" so much! The book spoke with my child self, my teenage self, and my adult self. I always felt myself betwixt-and-between, but I have never known how to express it. Jenny, on the other hand, does this job brilliantly in her book, and I am moved, grateful, and happy for that. Let's keep ourselves unfit for the boxes that other people insist on putting us into. Let's allow ourselves to be many different things, always! ❤️
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Jenny Boully é uma criatura mágica. Amei muito esse livro (ainda sem tradução para o Português)! Ele falou com a Juliana criança, com a Juliana adolescente e com a Juliana adulta. Sempre me senti "betwixt-and-between", nem uma coisa nem outra, algo ali no meio; mas eu nunca soube como expressar esse sentimento direito. Jenny, entretanto, faz esse trabalho brilhantemente em seu livro, e eu fiquei emocionada, agradecida e feliz por isso. Que a gente nunca caiba nas caixas que outras pessoas insistem em nos colocar. E que a gente se permita ser diferentes coisas, sempre! ❤️
.
.
Jenny Boully é uma criatura mágica. Amei muito esse livro (ainda sem tradução para o Português)! Ele falou com a Juliana criança, com a Juliana adolescente e com a Juliana adulta. Sempre me senti "betwixt-and-between", nem uma coisa nem outra, algo ali no meio; mas eu nunca soube como expressar esse sentimento direito. Jenny, entretanto, faz esse trabalho brilhantemente em seu livro, e eu fiquei emocionada, agradecida e feliz por isso. Que a gente nunca caiba nas caixas que outras pessoas insistem em nos colocar. E que a gente se permita ser diferentes coisas, sempre! ❤️
December 8, 2022
This book was…. fine. There were quite a few one-liners that really resonated, but as a whole, this book was quite disjointed and therefore, a frustrating read.
I went into this book thinking it would be more about writing, rather than the author’s own musings, and was disappointed to realize there was very little of the former and saturated with the latter.
Lastly, there were quite a few moments in this book that just seemed so ridiculous to me? Maybe they speak to someone else, but they don’t work for me at all. (Example: ““If you need to say love, I prefer you substitute that word with the word pizza.”“ (page 84)
I went into this book thinking it would be more about writing, rather than the author’s own musings, and was disappointed to realize there was very little of the former and saturated with the latter.
Lastly, there were quite a few moments in this book that just seemed so ridiculous to me? Maybe they speak to someone else, but they don’t work for me at all. (Example: ““If you need to say love, I prefer you substitute that word with the word pizza.”“ (page 84)
June 6, 2019
Writing about writing that reads like dreaming someone else’s dreams. I love this collection of essays, which are as much about being a writer, the act of writing, and the power of the written word as they are about time and memory and the messy complexities of being passionately alive.
September 15, 2018
Betwixt-and-Between: Essays on the Writing Life from Jenny Boully is that wonderful collection of essays that fulfills the promise of the word 'collection.' So often collections of essays are collections only in the sense that the essays have, indeed, been collected into one volume. Many times this is quite sufficient. Yet here collection is to be taken as a single entity with various parts, not simply a collection of parts. This volume is a whole, comprised of essays, collected into a volume.
The writing itself is remarkable. I enjoy essays and many make me think, and many make me feel. These make me think and feel, then think about those feelings. By the end I had come to "know" Boully, at least to the extent she allows in this book. And it certainly seems at times to be intimate. The beauty is that the intimacy appears, to me, to be for both her benefit as well as ours. She may have reaped many of the rewards when she first wrote the essays but we are reaping our rewards now, and likely again when we reread them (which I have every intention of doing).
This is not just about the writing life in the sense of what it is like to be a writer, but also about writing life, which is a type of writing we all do. It is in this relationship that we as readers gain the most insight. Boully wrote her life into her writing, whether explicitly or implicitly. This is not uncommon among writers, even those who are less fully aware of it. Yet the process of writing also helped to make her life what it was and is. We all do the same things. We write our lives, as in what has already passed. In writing the past part of our lives we influence how we will write the remainder of our lives.
I would highly recommend this to readers of personal essays as well as writers.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Edelweiss.
The writing itself is remarkable. I enjoy essays and many make me think, and many make me feel. These make me think and feel, then think about those feelings. By the end I had come to "know" Boully, at least to the extent she allows in this book. And it certainly seems at times to be intimate. The beauty is that the intimacy appears, to me, to be for both her benefit as well as ours. She may have reaped many of the rewards when she first wrote the essays but we are reaping our rewards now, and likely again when we reread them (which I have every intention of doing).
This is not just about the writing life in the sense of what it is like to be a writer, but also about writing life, which is a type of writing we all do. It is in this relationship that we as readers gain the most insight. Boully wrote her life into her writing, whether explicitly or implicitly. This is not uncommon among writers, even those who are less fully aware of it. Yet the process of writing also helped to make her life what it was and is. We all do the same things. We write our lives, as in what has already passed. In writing the past part of our lives we influence how we will write the remainder of our lives.
I would highly recommend this to readers of personal essays as well as writers.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Edelweiss.
May 31, 2018
Upon and after reading, all these essays had conversations with each other. Boully's words on writing advice read more like a loony dream and poetic spill into some long-lost garden. And then another essay would talk about her discomfort with genre definition ~ an identity of mixtures that become one whole. The hidden desires for why we write ~ in order to get someone to love us. Boully likens writing to witchcraft, and through her precise lyrical fragments, reading this book felt like a spell. Short essays are such a relief, a remedy. The last essay spoke upon the sorry of endings, of leaving, and I felt so sad to leave this. Among all the strands of abstract longing and the gorgeous memoir collages, ("22", "The Poet's Education," wow), there was very helpful writing advice here ~ hidden for those who truly were collecting it. Boully says, writing cannot be your number one hobby. You must have other hobbies in your life. You must be obsessed with things besides writing. Writing is your life, not your hobby. I've never read an "on writing" book like this, and I am screaming wondering if I ever will again (I will, I will.) Experimental nonfiction writers do not need a "how-to" book, but we need muses and mentors like Jenny Boully. It feels weird to mention in a Goodreads review, but Jenny Boully is about to be my actual teacher and mentor at Columbia College Chicago. I feel like Betwixt-and-Between was written just for me. As a student, and as a person of feelings, darkness, stories.
April 29, 2022
In her book Betwixt and Between: Essays on the Writing Life, Jenny Boully describes the tools that exist to writers as taught and seem to be
wholly unfit to contain concepts of love within and brings into focus new ways to approach those concepts, with sincerity, with a deep and dark honesty that sometimes feels like dying. A collection of essays on craft are really forays into dream and daydream, into the hardest parts of life: an illness, a pregnancy, depression, a relationship, but also none of these, but also all of these things at once, and the haze through which the reader finds these threads is illuminated by the sporadic landscapes of dream and daydream, and the immediate anchoring in what we know is reality by its sharp point: “I know the look of a cracked landscape, winter in black and white, flat and finite with a sunset on the horizon like a red heartbeat suffering there,” she writes. “It will take me longer each morning now to go out and face it. The CAT scan has been scheduled
for Wednesday” (12). Each essay in the collection has a unique lesson on craft but Boully's approach never makes these lessons feel tedious. It's a beautiful approach to talking about craft, as it involves what all writers do, write what they know, but does so through example, and involving the reader in a larger story about existing a person as well as a writer.
wholly unfit to contain concepts of love within and brings into focus new ways to approach those concepts, with sincerity, with a deep and dark honesty that sometimes feels like dying. A collection of essays on craft are really forays into dream and daydream, into the hardest parts of life: an illness, a pregnancy, depression, a relationship, but also none of these, but also all of these things at once, and the haze through which the reader finds these threads is illuminated by the sporadic landscapes of dream and daydream, and the immediate anchoring in what we know is reality by its sharp point: “I know the look of a cracked landscape, winter in black and white, flat and finite with a sunset on the horizon like a red heartbeat suffering there,” she writes. “It will take me longer each morning now to go out and face it. The CAT scan has been scheduled
for Wednesday” (12). Each essay in the collection has a unique lesson on craft but Boully's approach never makes these lessons feel tedious. It's a beautiful approach to talking about craft, as it involves what all writers do, write what they know, but does so through example, and involving the reader in a larger story about existing a person as well as a writer.
June 9, 2025
Dream again
(of carrots;
(the claw of rhubarb
(stalks)))
Listen
(to the Sugarcubes,
(and lay your workings
(bare)))
May a thousand
(different lichens
(roost on stones
(by icy gourds)))
Come spring
(the string beans
(will
(their way;
(don’t use up
(all the words—
(let them recharge))))))
Identify with quarry;
(close your eyes,
(lie still
(be
(prey))))
The future
(is the thing
(that won’t
(arrive)))
Craft artifacts
(make art—
(now this is epic
(poetry)))
Equip your golden record
(with a stylus,
(fly
(and die;
(suffer seasons,
(see it off
(and say it
(right)))))))
Take 40,000 years;
(approach the star
(to which
(you’re bound)))
Be interstellar,
(better not to hurry—
(rushing slows us
(down)))
Make your communion
(yours;
(resuscitate the lived
(upon the page)))
What is set
(in stone,
(obscured
(by moss)))?
Give someone else
(what is
(no more,
(look back
(and turn
(to salt)))))
You’re old
(when you see forests
(and the trees))
Compose the page,
(turn to it,
(turn it over
(to the next)))
All lines
(will break
(and leave you
(where you are—
(white speck
(on white)))))
(of carrots;
(the claw of rhubarb
(stalks)))
Listen
(to the Sugarcubes,
(and lay your workings
(bare)))
May a thousand
(different lichens
(roost on stones
(by icy gourds)))
Come spring
(the string beans
(will
(their way;
(don’t use up
(all the words—
(let them recharge))))))
Identify with quarry;
(close your eyes,
(lie still
(be
(prey))))
The future
(is the thing
(that won’t
(arrive)))
Craft artifacts
(make art—
(now this is epic
(poetry)))
Equip your golden record
(with a stylus,
(fly
(and die;
(suffer seasons,
(see it off
(and say it
(right)))))))
Take 40,000 years;
(approach the star
(to which
(you’re bound)))
Be interstellar,
(better not to hurry—
(rushing slows us
(down)))
Make your communion
(yours;
(resuscitate the lived
(upon the page)))
What is set
(in stone,
(obscured
(by moss)))?
Give someone else
(what is
(no more,
(look back
(and turn
(to salt)))))
You’re old
(when you see forests
(and the trees))
Compose the page,
(turn to it,
(turn it over
(to the next)))
All lines
(will break
(and leave you
(where you are—
(white speck
(on white)))))
Read
June 2, 2019A quick but enjoyable read that covers a lot of territory on the path to becoming a writer. I particularly enjoyed the following essays: "On Writing and Withcraft"; "Moveable Types"; "On the EEO Genre Sheet"; "The Poet's Education"; and "On Beginnings and Endings." This book had so much to say about not coming from privilege and becoming a writer anyway, including when you get interviewed for positions and people ask you questions that are pointedly asked to filter you out of the interview process, and when you opt out due to imposter syndrome. In spite of all of that, you keep reading, absorbing, writing, and growing. This book is a good reminder that the trajectory is not plotted out like specialized, corporate career track, especially if you want the writing to be good.
December 14, 2020
I absolutely loved this essay collection. Jenny Boully not only shares amazing insights about writing but also demonstrates the craft perfectly through her own lyrical and metic writing. Boully helps us realize the the best writing is about life and the daily struggles it entails and that really writing is all about capturing the poetry of everyday moments.
Through her various essays about genre, word choice, verb tenses, memory, love, and race, Boully teaches writers at any stage the importance of mechanics along with the big ideas. She poignantly delves into the most difficult parts of life and beautifully highlights the most beautiful moments as well. Overall, this essay collection is delightful to read while still being incredibly insightful about not only writing, but life as well.
Through her various essays about genre, word choice, verb tenses, memory, love, and race, Boully teaches writers at any stage the importance of mechanics along with the big ideas. She poignantly delves into the most difficult parts of life and beautifully highlights the most beautiful moments as well. Overall, this essay collection is delightful to read while still being incredibly insightful about not only writing, but life as well.
October 3, 2022
a real high-highs and low-lows read for me. while some of these are gorgeous little gems, others really feel phoned in or lacking to me. while i started out a little worried that it was just the term "essays" on the cover of a pretty betwixt&between-y book that was throwing me off, i realized it was more that some of these essays encapsulate what their title aims for, while others feel like modest and brief notations on a subject more than they actually enter into a dialogue or open up a new epiphany for their reader. it was the chapters about the writing life itself, and Boully's own history that i was most struck by. but then the ones that are intended as more referential and discursive feel like a simple reference without much weight behind them.
January 4, 2021
Have had Jenny Boully books on my “to read” list for ages because she comes up with a lot of other great essayists, but haven’t gotten to it because my library doesn’t carry her books. Ordered this one due to the consistently positive reviews but it just wasn’t for me. It was meandering in a way that is different from the path I meander on and couldn’t hold my attention. Apologies to Jenny and to fans out there but this was just not for me.
June 10, 2018
"I remembered everything so exceptionally well that spring because my heart was breaking, and I carried that heartbreak with me a few more years until I didn't know what to do with it. It was then that I realized what I wanted more than someone to love were those lilacs, those dogwoods, those curls of wisteria, the fat bumblebees, the air and the scenery of Southwest Virginia"
July 8, 2018
This book ended up to be more about how I misread its title when picking it up at a bookstore, essays about writing of life, instead of the writing life. Jenny Boully is such a beautiful writer, that even though some of the essays threw me off, at the end I managed to get something out of them.
Can’t wait to read more of her work.
Can’t wait to read more of her work.
July 18, 2018
Read the full review here: http://pageandplate.com/betwixtandbet...
This collection was one of the more ~artistic~ that I've read this year. It was heavy on the lush writing, the philosophical themes, and the moments where I was totally and completely lost. Again, this might say more about me than it does about the book.
This collection was one of the more ~artistic~ that I've read this year. It was heavy on the lush writing, the philosophical themes, and the moments where I was totally and completely lost. Again, this might say more about me than it does about the book.
July 3, 2025
Loved these essays on writing and literature and life.
Snippets I wrote in my journal:
“The only thing, really, I can bring to this craft, however dark it is, is to write sincerely because I am dying.”
And
“What I have learned about great writers: they were always obsessed with something, but they were very seldom obsessed with writing.”
Snippets I wrote in my journal:
“The only thing, really, I can bring to this craft, however dark it is, is to write sincerely because I am dying.”
And
“What I have learned about great writers: they were always obsessed with something, but they were very seldom obsessed with writing.”
August 11, 2018
This is the first book by Boully I've read but it won't be the last. Her short essays seem to go places others do not and sometimes leave the reader hanging in the air, but it's an energizing reading experience that makes the reader think. Thanks to the author.
January 8, 2019
A beautifully written book contemplating the curiosities and peculiarities of life, memory, dreams, and writing. Boully weaves together several beautiful essays about the relatoonships between the world and the art of writing.
March 10, 2020
A fascinating collection of essays on writing, but not a writing handbook, which makes it even more interesting. A reflection on the transitional spaces between writing and memory, desire, time and dreams. A persuasion to write what you want to write rather than what you think you should write.
November 2, 2022
I didn’t expect to enjoy reading this as much as I did, since I’m not a poetry person (I appreciate abstract and the beauty of lyric, but I don’t like to feel confused). I highlighted a lot of the first half especially.
May 10, 2018
Poetic essays; more poetry than essay. Not what I had been looking for in that regard. Written beautifully; but with basically zero context, explanation, or provisions.
August 11, 2018
Hard to get into
I struggled to understand the first half or more. I don't easily give up reading a book. Finally, halfway through I started to understand.
I struggled to understand the first half or more. I don't easily give up reading a book. Finally, halfway through I started to understand.
August 28, 2018
Individually some of these essays sang, but they were often a bit too twee for me.
October 2, 2018
Disjointed and faux-deep
September 5, 2019
Beautiful beautiful inspiring "genre bending" inspiration I will carry this book with me
February 26, 2020
A must read for any writer or human!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews