Jerry DeNuccio is a retired English professor who taught for 28 years at Graceland University in Lamoni, Iowa. Toward the end of his career, he turned his attention away from academic writing and toward the personal essay as the result of a student's challenge. In a literature seminar, during a discussion of Esperanza's encounter with Sister Superior in Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street, after he recounted some of his own experiences with Dominican nuns as an elementary school student, the student said, "You should write about that." He did, and never stopped.