Essays

Essays

Toni Morrison’s Native Figures

A new reading of race in her novels
Namwali Serpell
Folio

How LLMs Set My Fiction Free

Writing no longer felt like experimenting. AI made it fun again.
Christopher Sorrentino
Folio

My AI Boyfriend

A cynic enters the data pool
Lauren Oyler
Folio

Chasing Alice

The life and death of a chatbot
Sheila Heti
Folio

Donna Haraway’s Utopian Promise

We were supposed to become feminist cyborgs. Instead, we got ChatGPT.
Meghan O’Gieblyn
Folio

Jagged Intelligence

The dangerous unknowns at the heart of LLMs
Melanie Mitchell

Browse

Essays

Image of COVID-19 virus. Graphic by Bianca Ibarlucea.
Pandemic Files

Seven Theses on the Open-Closed Theaters

The pandemic has shuttered theaters, but the need for communal experience has never been more vital
Feisal G. Mohamed
October 21, 2020
photograph of metal match box with "a [image of a match] for you at any time" printed on the front
Essays

Everything Bright Is Something Burned

How to mourn a planet
Erica Berry
September 1, 2020
Blurred photograph of trees with barely distinguishable reflection of two people
Essays

Lovecraft and Me

How cosmic horror gave me hope
Kieran Setiya
September 1, 2020
chalkboard with yellow line along top and bottom
Essays

My Silent Childhood

I didn’t know my name until I went to kindergarten. Then I became a writer.
Maureen Sun
September 1, 2020
Photograph of white house
Essays

Soup Can; or, On Hospitality

Anything can become a weapon in America, especially against those who dare to cross the color line
Wendy S. Walters
September 1, 2020
Pandemic Files

We Miss Each Other, But Do We Even Know Each Other?

After a long-ago theater closure, a female playwright complicated what it means to be intimate with another body
Katherine Mannheimer
July 23, 2020
Image of COVID-19 virus. Graphic by Bianca Ibarlucea.
Pandemic Files

The First Nerve

What one's sense of smell takes with it when it goes
Amrapali Maitra
July 21, 2020
Image of COVID-19 virus. Graphic by Bianca Ibarlucea.
Pandemic Files

Invisible Kingdoms

How do you convince people to share your reality?
Noreen Khawaja
July 7, 2020
Image of COVID-19 virus. Graphic by Bianca Ibarlucea.
Pandemic Files

The Crisis of Asylum at Trump’s Border Wall

A symbol is being built for the sake of voters who have never been to the borderlands
Emily Gogolak
July 2, 2020
Pandemic Files

A Nurse Comes to Brooklyn

She wanted to do something for herself, so she traveled 1,200 miles to care for COVID-19 patients
Nell Freudenberger
June 30, 2020