Essays

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
Memoir

The Talented Ms. Highsmith

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

Taking Offense

Reading through bad feeling
Garth Greenwell
Essays

How Mrs. Dalloway Began

Slipping into Virginia Woolf’s sentences
Edmund de Waal
Essays

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
Essays

What Happened When I Began to Speak Welsh

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

Browse

Essays

A stack of old issues of The Yale Review. Courtesy Pentagram
Essays

What We Leave

Stealing pants from a rockstar
Sara Schaff
April 15, 2019
A stack of old issues of The Yale Review. Courtesy Pentagram
Essays

Cremation Society of Kentucky

A life in burned flesh
Raymond Abbott
April 8, 2019
A portrait by Picasso of Gertrude Stein.
Essays

“Sitting at the Table” with Stein and Ashbery

“An Occasion” for Thin[g]king
Karin Roffman
April 1, 2019
Louie Bellson lighting Pearl Bailey's cigarette
Essays

Cultural Differences

How fictional portrayals of intermarriage haven't quite caught up
Jennifer Acker
April 1, 2019
A stack of old issues of The Yale Review. Courtesy Pentagram
Essays

Music in the Second Person

Listening to Opus 110
Mark Mazullo
April 1, 2019
A stack of old issues of The Yale Review. Courtesy Pentagram
Essays

Myth and Anarchy

Matthew Spellberg
April 1, 2019
A photograph of Ann Petry.
Essays

Nothing New Under the Sun

Ann Petry’s The Street and The Narrows
Emily Bernard
April 1, 2019
A stack of old issues of The Yale Review. Courtesy Pentagram
Essays

The Hall-Mills Murder Trial, 1926

A consideration of death
Harold Schechter
April 1, 2019
A stack of old issues of The Yale Review. Courtesy Pentagram
Essays

“The Lonely Hearts Killer,” 1957-1958

Notes on a killing
Harold Schechter
March 18, 2019
Northern lights in blue and red on black sky
Essays

How After the Quake You Returned to What Was Lost

A brief moment
Éireann Lorsung
March 11, 2019