Essays

The Unfolding of Time in Paint

My encounters with Joan Mitchell's panels
Rachel Cohen
Sepia toned photograph showing painter Joan Mitchell behind a canvas in her studio

The Talented Ms. Highsmith

I worked for the novelist in her final months. I thought she wanted to kill me.
Elena Gosalvez Blanco

Taking Offense

Reading through bad feeling
Garth Greenwell

How Mrs. Dalloway Began

Slipping into Virginia Woolf’s sentences
Edmund de Waal

When Does a Divorce Begin?

Most people think of it as failure. For me it was an achievement.
Anahid Nersessian
Dan Fox as a child with his nain, or grandmother, in the chicken-filled yard of Siambr Wen, near Llanrwst, North Wales, UK

What Happened When I Began to Speak Welsh

By learning my family's language, I hoped to join their conversation.
Dan Fox

Browse

Essays

Louise Glück

The poet who taught me to write books
Meghan O’Rourke
October 18, 2023

Lou Reed Didn’t Want to Be King

A biography tries to pin the rocker down
Hannah Gold
October 16, 2023

Are Twins Kinda Gay?

What Dead Ringers reveals about pop culture's latest obsession
Helena de Bres
October 9, 2023

10 Ways Ms., Sassy, and Jezebel Changed Your Life!

How contradiction drove fifty years of feminist media
Maggie Doherty
September 18, 2023

How Emily Wilson Reimagined Homer

Her boldly innovative translation of the Iliad is an epic for our time
Emily Greenwood
September 18, 2023

In the Shallows

Why do public intellectuals condescend to their readers?
Becca Rothfeld
September 18, 2023

Lorraine Hansberry’s Queer Archive

The playwright’s lesbian fiction has gone largely unpublished. But she wanted you to read it.
Alec Pollak
September 18, 2023

The Choice Plot

Why are so many new novels obsessed with whether–and how–to have children?
Sanjena Sathian
September 18, 2023

Unfathomable Life

As a philosopher, I thought I understood risk. Then I tried to get pregnant.
Anna Hartford
September 18, 2023

Service or Servitude?

The Bear and The Menu give us very different views of capitalism
Daniel W. Drezner
September 12, 2023