Frances Mayes is an American university professor, poet, memoirist, essayist, and novelist. He was also a journalist, novelist, and essayist. Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic. Joseph Boyden is a Canadian novelist, screenwriter, essayist, and public speaker. He is the nephew of Irish playwright, novelist and essayist John B. Keane. Max Wolf Valerio is a Native American poet, memoir writer, essayist and actor. Pankaj Mishra (born 1969) is an Indian essayist and novelist. Karen Chee is an American comedian, essayist, and comedy writer. Her sister was the noted essayist and poet Alice Meynell. In the United States, Gore Vidal is often considered an essayist rather than a novelist. Logan Pearsall Smith became an essayist and critic. Klavan has also worked in film and as an essayist and video satirist. The ninth-century essayist, polymath and polemicist al-Jahiz said. "Self-Reliance" is an 1841 essay written by American transcendentalist philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson. Her step-grandfather was prominent essayist and critic Edmund Wilson.