Phillip Lopate

Phillip Lopate is director of Columbia University's nonfiction program, editor of The Art of the Personal Essay, and author of Against Joie de Vivre, Portrait of My Body, and To Show and to Tell, among other books.

On the Death of Friendship

Nothing lasts forever

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, June 02, 2017

Valentines Past

If only I’d had the nerve …

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, June 16, 2017

Memories of Jazz Nights

You needed stamina, but the payoff was great

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, June 23, 2017

Tennis, Anyone?

Obsession and regression

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, June 30, 2017

Remembering Cynthia Macdonald

Poet, teacher, opera singer, psychoanalyst, and friend

by Phillip Lopate | Thursday, May 11, 2017

A Visit to Harvard

And a surprise encounter with Dr. Johnson

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, May 19, 2017

On Keeping a Blog

A Farewell

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, May 26, 2017

Marrying a Widow

Or, my spectral predecessor

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, May 05, 2017

Baldwin the Prophet vs. Baldwin the Writer

Can a film really capture the essence of both?

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, April 28, 2017

Listening to Dinah

The complexity of “Don’t Explain”

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, April 21, 2017

Celebrity Profiles

Why I gave them up

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, April 14, 2017

Report from Hong Kong

30 films, two days, and the inevitable breaking out in song

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, April 07, 2017

Robert Silvers

In memoriam

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, March 31, 2017

The Eros of Teaching

Bonds formed and broken

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, March 24, 2017

Indian Wedding

Seinfeld had nothing on this

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, March 10, 2017

A Quick Tour of India

Taking it all in, and taking it all back

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, March 17, 2017

Resisting Mr. T****

Or, the art of the boast

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, March 03, 2017

Swimming in the Salmon Stream

The AWP convention

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, February 24, 2017

Valentines Past

If only I’d had the nerve …

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, February 17, 2017

On Being Popular and Well-Liked

The subject that makes me most nervous as a writer

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, February 10, 2017

Memories of Jazz Nights

You needed stamina, but the payoff was great

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, February 03, 2017

Sadness, Irony, and Equilibrium

When art turns blue

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, January 27, 2017

Liking La La Land and Jackie

The perversity of appreciation

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, January 20, 2017

The Big Schlep

Trapped in a world of women (and cats)

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, January 13, 2017

The Complex Art of Second-Guessing

Maybe the mistakes weren’t Hillary’s, after all

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, January 06, 2017

Father-In-Law

The power of disapproval

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, December 23, 2016

The Agnes Martin Retrospective

What to make of all those fussy graphite lines?

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, December 16, 2016

Skyping Brazil

On the pleasure of a virtual dissertation defense

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, December 09, 2016

The Paradox of Urban Density

The good, the bad, and the ugly

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, December 02, 2016

Reflections after the Election

Counting the worry beads

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, November 18, 2016

The New York Film Festival

A report

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, November 11, 2016

The Workmen

Keeping the faith

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, November 04, 2016

The Roads Not Taken

I coulda been a contender—as a cantor

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, October 28, 2016

What Our Politicians Can’t Bring Themselves to Say

(And why the personal essay might help)

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, October 21, 2016

The Martyrdom Prayers

Enigmas and mysteries

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, October 14, 2016

“Give Me a Place”

On Montaigne and Judaism

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, October 07, 2016

Holding On to the Banister

The art of being cautious

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, September 23, 2016

September Song

And so a new year begins

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, September 16, 2016

Tennis, Anyone?

Obsession and regression

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, September 09, 2016

The Missing Friend

An attachment that will not die

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, September 02, 2016

Selling My Papers

A life’s work out the door

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, August 19, 2016

Confronting the Inevitable Subject

A few hundred words, and then I’m done

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, August 12, 2016

Remembering Abbas Kiarostami

The great filmmaker was cool, cosmopolitan, and lonely

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, August 05, 2016

On to Nanjing

In a land of paradox

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, July 29, 2016

Still in Shanghai

Getting personal—or not

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, July 22, 2016

On Women Artists

Two recent films

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, July 08, 2016

The Dead of Summer

What to do on this sweltering day …

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, July 01, 2016

English Women Novelists

Catching up

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, June 24, 2016

People With Knapsacks

Three Notes

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, June 17, 2016

Elevated

Alone in space

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, June 10, 2016

We Begin

Introducing our new blogger

by Phillip Lopate | Wednesday, June 01, 2016

On the Death of Friendship

Nothing lasts forever

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, September 30, 2016

Letter from Shanghai

The cityscape of the future—and the present

by Phillip Lopate | Friday, July 15, 2016