Ranging from third person accounts to essays in the form of notes, instructions, and extended meditations, This World Is Not Your Home unfurls like an idiosyncratic playlist of the possibilities available to the writer of creative nonfiction.
The title essay, written in second person, tells the story of Vollmer’s growing up in rural North Carolina, and catalogs the psychological pressures exerted by a little-known religion that, while all-consuming for the author, seemed invisible to the rest of the world. Other essays include:
Written using a variety of forms and points of view, these immersive, voice-driven essays are a testament to the dexterity of the form.
Vollmer is the author of two short-story collections—Future Missionaries of America and Gateway to Paradise—as well as two collections of essays—inscriptions for headstones and Permanent Exhibit. He was the editor of A Book of Uncommon Prayer, which collects invocations from over 60 acclaimed and emerging authors, and served as co-editor of Fakes: An Anthology of Pseudo-Interviews, Faux-Lectures, Quasi-Letters, “Found” Texts, and Other Fraudulent Artifacts. His work has appeared in venues such as Paris Review, Glimmer Train, Ploughshares, Tin House, Oxford American, The Sun, The Pushcart Prize anthology, and Best American Essays. Vollmer’s book-length essay All Of Us Together In The End will be published by Hub City Press in 2023. He teaches in the English Department at Virginia Tech.