Essays

Essays

Lessons of the Line

Charles Simic and me
Dana Levin
Essays

Ucky Art

Judith Scott, Eva Hesse, and the visceral power of "texxture"
Lauren Elkin
Essays

Unfathomable Life

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

Spiritualism’s Shadows

On COVID-19 and false consolation
Alicia Puglionesi
Essays

Heat Maps

Desire in the dark
Alex Marzano-Lesnevich
Objects of Desire

Jars with Well-Fitting Lids

Seeing loss more clearly
Catherine Lacey

Browse

Essays

Graphic with alternating black and purple, and hands opening to a white space
The Moment

Strangers in Our Own Homes

The pandemic’s xenophobic discourse
Divya Victor
September 20, 2021
Two cartoon characters superimposed onto painting of a storm.
Essays

The Brink of Destruction

Revisiting John Ashbery’s “Soonest Mended”
Edward Hirsch
September 20, 2021
Graphic with two bathtubs on pedestals and a leaf dropping from the faucets
Essays

Suicide in Fiction, Reconsidered

Why we need stories about living after a suicide attempt
Morgan Thomas
September 7, 2021
Riot
Essays

In the Riot Grrrl Archive

Punk and the limits of individualism
Rachel Greenwald Smith
July 19, 2021
Lighthouse stairs
Essays

Lullaby

On motherhood and the pain of holding
Chloe Garcia Roberts
July 12, 2021
Black and white still showing Giulietta Masina smiling with a black tear at the corner of her eye
Essays

How to Come Back to Life

On reaching middle age and carrying on
Emily Ogden
June 28, 2021
Series of stills of author doing a poetry reading.
Essays

I Killed, I Died

Banter, self-destruction, and the poetry reading
Douglas Kearney
June 28, 2021
Graphic with book pages and blue designs of windows and cats
Essays

The Heart of Fiction

Storytelling, experience, and truth
Hernan Diaz
June 28, 2021
Essays

The Subject of Pain

On Louise Bourgeois
Madhu H. Kaza
June 28, 2021
Interior view of library.
Essays

What Space is For

The forking paths of memory and return
Mairead Small Staid
June 28, 2021