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

A Head Is a Territory of Light

Seeking answers about my migraines
Tan Tuck Ming
October 8, 2024

Fredric Jameson

The Marxist critic who remained open to mystery
Caleb Smith
October 3, 2024

Richard Pryor

A fiction
Hilton Als
September 9, 2024

The Path to Playwright

Discovering my literary hero in an unlikely place
Sonya Kelly
September 9, 2024

The Shapes of Grief

Witnessing the unbearable
Christina Sharpe
September 9, 2024

Vintage Merch

Buying someone else’s history
Hanif Abdurraqib
September 9, 2024

The Frictions of Interracial Love

How one fundamental difference can color every aspect of marriage
Anne Anlin Cheng
September 5, 2024

The Poet as a Young Critic

In Thom Gunn’s early work for The Yale Review, he valued style above all else
Langdon Hammer
June 27, 2024

A Reviewer’s Life

The material constraints of writing criticism today
Christine Smallwood
June 10, 2024

Critical Navel-Gazing

If criticism is in crisis, it’s not the critic’s problem
Namwali Serpell
June 10, 2024