Essays

How the Federal Writers’ Project Shaped a Generation of Authors

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The Federal Writers' Project of the 1930s proved an education in art and empathy.
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Essays

How to Exclaim!

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Austen, Hemingway, Rushdie, and more offer lessons on how best to use the exclamation point.
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Essays

In Search of Writers’ Haunts

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I seek out the haunts of writers because pursuing the paths of those who have gone before affords me a degree of justification in my own pursuits.
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Essays

The Brief Liberation of Yu Xuanji

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Nearly 1,200 years after her death, Yu is still remembered as one of China’s foremost female poets.
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Essays

The Generative Joys of Bookbinding

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As a book artist I’ve learned to follow inspiration wherever it comes from, to be guided by a sense of awe for words as art.
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Essays

The Timely Provocations of Matthew Gasda

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'Dimes Square' portrays what it’s like for creatives—wherever they are—to survive in the competitive art ecosystem of today.
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Essays

Founder’s Picks: The Best of The Millions

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The Millions might now best be shared in a more analog fashion, from one trusted reader to another, and it is in that spirit that I gift to you these links.
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Essays

What It Takes to Be a TikTok Poet

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Surely, learning to self-promote couldn’t be harder or more demoralizing than the last decade I’d spent writing.
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Essays

The Forgotten Novelist Who Remade Egyptian Cinema

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It is shocking that Ihsan Abdel Kouddous is still largely unknown outside the Arab world.
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Essays

The Abiding ‘Gift’ of Anne Morrow Lindbergh

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Did my mother, in reading 'Gift from the Sea,' discover a way to carve out necessary space from the husband she adored?
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Essays

Why Read John Milton?

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You should read John Milton because he will take your fucking head off.
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Essays

Catch and Release

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Not everyone gets to publish their first book alongside their mentor.
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Essays

To a Happier Year: On E.M. Forster and ‘Maurice’

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'Maurice' is a story of queer joy—a fantasy, given the era of its composition, but one bittersweetly grounded in reality.
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Essays

Children Will Listen: The Blakean World of ‘Into the Woods’

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Like Sondheim, William Blake uncovered the darker elements of children’s literature.
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Essays

Prince Harry’s Ghostwriter Broke the Rules

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While our job may be to tell stories, there are some we should keep to ourselves.
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Essays

“Writing Is Freedom and To Hell with Everything Else”

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There will always be an audience for the great pleasure to be had from reading Amis's dense, droll, wonderfully discursive sentences.
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Essays

Criticism, Anyone?: An Ode to Martin Amis

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The author of some 25 books, many of them brilliant, he seemed incapable of writing a bland string of words.
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Essays

On Migraines, Pain, and Creativity

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I collect famous migraine sufferers. I can trust them; they are a consolation.
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