Nonfiction

Essays

The Shapes of Grief

Witnessing the unbearable
Christina Sharpe
Books

Writing in Pictures

Richard Scarry and the art of children’s literature
Chris Ware
Books

Is Blasphemy Illiberal?

Salman Rushdie’s thoroughly modern controversies
Len Gutkin
Art

How Mike Kelley Became Himself

The artist’s search for subcultural America
Jonathan Griffin
Objects of Desire

Richard Pryor

A fiction
Hilton Als
Essays

The Path to Playwright

Discovering my literary hero in an unlikely place
Sonya Kelly

Browse

Nonfiction

Essays

The Wondrous Banality of Democracy

Counting the votes in one Pennsylvania county during the 2020 presidential election
John Fabian Witt
November 13, 2020

A Witness to Survival

Hannah Sassoon
September 24, 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
Image of COVID-19 virus. Graphic by Bianca Ibarlucea.
Pandemic Files

I Can’t Sleep

After days of witnessing racial violence, respite is no longer a given
Emily Bernard
June 15, 2020
The author with her brother, 1999.
Essays

After My Brother

Finding the language of loss
Brianna Zimmerman
June 1, 2020
Still from the film Atlantics, 2019.
Film

In the Atmosphere

In Mati Diop’s Atlantics, every breath takes in the evaporated substance of history
Lindsay Turner
June 1, 2020
Abstract geometric image.
Books

Speech Acts

Eunice de Souza, a post-Independence Indian poet, explores the glitches in poetic voicing
Vidyan Ravinthiran
June 1, 2020