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

Cancel Culture and Other Myths

Anti-fandom as heartbreak
Kathryn Lofton
March 27, 2023

Nothing Is a Memory

Remembering Bernadette Mayer
Daniel Poppick
March 27, 2023

Ode to Babel

The ecstasy of Michael K. Williams
Roger Reeves
March 27, 2023

Throwing Punches in a Dive Bar

Three years into the pandemic, what does care look like?
Jordan Kisner
March 27, 2023

You Were the Bird

Petite Maman and the axis between mother and daughter
Georgia Cloepfil
March 27, 2023

A Moral Education

In praise of filth
Garth Greenwell
March 20, 2023

Charles Simic

Remembering a great poet and friend
Meghan O’Rourke
January 13, 2023

Eliot Among the Ruins

The Waste Land remains prophetic, but what did it foretell?
Langdon Hammer
December 12, 2022

A Faceless Compass

Johannesburg’s haunted streets
Ivan Vladislavić
December 6, 2022

Bottle Torches

A fantasia on Nari Ward
Ishion Hutchinson
December 6, 2022