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Science Fiction

“The Soul Should Not Be Handled” (The Point [dot com]) / “Hidden Fears and Secret Dreams” (The Point [dot com]) / “Ursula K. Le Guin was her own toughest (and best) critic” (The Washington Post) | “Joanna Russ, the Science-Fiction Writer Who Said No” (New Yorker)

Favorites

“Summer, Glorious Summer!” (Lapham’s Quarterly) | “Full-Length Mirror” (Paris Review) | “What Is Miss America, if Not a Beauty Pageant?” (New York Times Magazine) | “The Bad Patient” (The Drift) | “Monumental Woes” (The Hedgehog Review) | “Thunder Entered Her” (Commonweal) | “What exactly do we want from the author of ‘Cat Person’?” (The Outline) | “American Gothic” (The Baffler) | “Enough with the ‘forgotten’ writers” (The Week) | “Teaching a Dog to Talk” (Full Stop) | “The Ills That Flesh Is Heir To” (The Hedgehog Review)  

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By outlet (current).…

The Atlantic

“Seven Books That Actually Capture What Sickness Is Like”  

The Baffler

“American Gothic.” On the temptation to clean up gothic classics. | “The Puppet Master.” Review of the oeuvre of John Williams (not the movie score guy).  

Commonweal

See everything I’ve written for Commonweal over the years here.

Defector

“I Will Never Abandon My Special Little Drink”

Full Stop

“Teaching a Dog to Talk”

The Hedgehog Review

You can see all my Hedgehog Review pieces here.

Image

“With My Body I Thee Worship”

The Lamp

“Fossil Record.” On Christmas anachronism. | “Angela Lansbury, R.I.P.” | “A Little Tea Shop.” On British TV shows. (No link available.) | “Fulfillment’s Desolate Attic.” On frauds. (No link available.)  

LitHub

“The Fine Art of Falling to Pieces.”   

The New Yorker

“Eleanor Catton Wants Plot to Matter Again.” A review of Birnam Wood. | “Claire-Louise Bennett’s Women Without a Story.” A review of Checkout 19. | “‘Divorcing’ Is Literature That Looks Beyond Life.” A review of Divorcing. | “‘Moonstruck’ Knows That the Best Things in Life Aren’t Chosen.” A tribute to one of the greatest movies of all time. | “What Would J. M. Coetzee’s Jesus Do?” Review of Coetzee’s Jesus trilogy. | “Joanna Russ, the Science-Fiction Writer Who Said No.” About my favorite girl. 🙂  

The New York Times

“The Case for (Temporary) Celibacy.” Bit self-explanatory. | “The Taylor Swift Endorsement Fantasy.” Celebrity endorsements don’t matter. | “Sally Rooney Deserves Better Than This.” Well, she does!  

The New York Times Magazine

“TV Is Full of Stories About Creative Work — Minus the Work Part.” A qualified criticism of the TV show Hacks but mostly an excuse to praise Ishtar. |  “What I Saw When I Looked Inside My Own Body.” X-Rays are weird. | “What Is Miss America, if Not a Beauty Pageant?” Maybe the bitchiest thing I ever wrote? I mean this positively. | “Kim Kardashian Evokes Marilyn Monroe and We Get to Judge.” Somehow, less bitchy.

The Paris Review

“Anne Elliot is Twenty-Seven.” Ain’t that the truth. |  “Full-Length Mirror.” I have one now.  

Poetry

“Crying Online Like a Normal Person.” Review of Melissa Broder’s collected poems.  

Slate

“Taylor Swift Still Isn’t Your Friend.” Unless she is in which case why are you reading Slate instead of hanging out with her.

The Wall Street Journal

“‘Intermezzo’ Review: Sibling Rivalry From Sally Rooney.” Review of Intermezzo.  

The Washington Post

“A lost classic for fans of Renata Adler and Elizabeth Hardwick.” Review of Elaine Kraf’s The Princess of 72nd St. | “Ursula K. Le Guin was her own toughest (and best) critic.” Review of UKLG’s The Language of the Night. | “Taylor Swift makes her lyrics feel like diary pages. We should read them as art.” Piece commemorating Red (Taylor’s Version).  

The Week

“‘No’ is not enough.” About sexual ethics. | “The underestimated Kazuo Ishiguro.” The guilt artist. | “Enough with the ‘forgotten’ writers.” I remember them!!  

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By outlet (defunct).…

Gawker 2.0

“Let People Enjoy This Essay” | “Pleasure Needs No Politics” | “My Daily Pills” | “The New Trend is Gnomecore” | “How to Make a Movie About a Mass Shooter” | “The Seventh Victim Gets The Horror Of Living” | “Stephen Sondheim Helped Me See Myself” | “It’s Very Unlikely Anyone Will Read This in 200 Years” | “The Femcel Canon” | “Sheila Heti’s ‘Pure Colour’ Is an Ode to Insufficiency” | “Kenneth Branagh: My Poirot Must Ache”  

The Outline

“A decade of sore winners.” | “What exactly do we want from the author of ‘Cat Person’?” | “‘Heroes of the Fourth Turning’ is a haunted play about religious conservatives.”| “James Joyce’s grandson and the death of the stubborn literary executor.” | “The language of consent is ill-suited to politics.” | “The thesaurus is good, valuable, commendable, superb, actually.”  

The Weekly Standard

“My Ebenezer.” Tribute to the Muppet Christmas Carol. | “Your Other Body.” Review of Daisy Hildyard’s The Second Body. | “Witty Women.” Review of Michelle Dean’s Sharp. | “Immortal Beloveds.” Review of Dara Horn’s Eternal Life. “Irregular Loves.” Review of Sally Rooney’s Conversations With Friends. | “Chance of a Lifetime.” Review of Sheila Heti’s Motherhood.