Regarding the Em Dash

Punctuation, largely invisible and insignificant for normal people, as it should be, is a highly personal matter for writers.  Periods, commas, colons, semi-colons:  in their use or non-use and in their order and placement, can represent elaboration, conjecture, doubt, finality.  And in aggregate, over the course of a text, the rhythms of punctuation advance an author’s worldview and personality as surely as any plot or theme.  Patterns of punctuation usage are the writerly equivalent of an athlete’s go-to moves, or a singer’s peculiar timbre and range—those little dots and squiggles, in a sense, encode your voice.  Anthony Powell’s colon (pardon the inadvertent image) is as signature as Kyrie Irving’s crossover or Rihanna’s throaty cry.

For me, there is no punctuation mark as versatile and appealing as the em dash.  I love the em dash in a way that is difficult to explain, which is, probably, the motivation of this essay.  And my love for it is emphasized by the fact that many