Karen Wilfrid Wrote An Essay Honoring The Memory Of Her Favorite Student

by | July 17, 2025

For Electric Literature, Karen Wilfrid wrote an essay about her former student who died by suicide at the age of twenty-one. Wilfrid told Study Hall that she wrote about how “complicated it is as a teacher to drive for a student many years after I taught him.” 

In the essay, Wilfrid writes, “He was my favorite student. Most people, when I tell them that, assume I mean it figuratively—that he was special, a kid I liked a lot—because teachers aren’t supposed to have a literal favorite. But Tyler was mine.” 

Wilfrid’s writing has appeared in Publishers Weekly, Dead Darlings, Cicada, and other outlets.

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