This week, Witches of America author Alex Mar came to visit my Tutorial Advising class, bringing with her stories of traveling the country reporting on the occult. She described the process of turning a proposal that was more or less reporting into a book that’s at least one-half memoir. Mar, whose documentary American Mystic was also a topic of conversation, had come prepared to talk about Janet Malcolm’s New Yorker essay “41 False Starts,” a profile of artist David Salle. Students wrote in Malcolm’s style this week. I’d encourage anyone from class to post their pieces below, in the comments.