SPOTLIGHT

“Soap Suds” by Louis MacNeice

Poems read aloud, beautifully

By Amanda Holmes Tuesday, November 11, 2025

SPOTLIGHT

“Soap Suds” by Louis MacNeice

Poems read aloud, beautifully

By Amanda Holmes Tuesday, November 11, 2025

History Is Not Everything

There is more to life than what has come before

Web Essays

The Devil’s Party?

Why we love Lucifer—and why Milton might have, too

Next Line, Please

Two Lines a Day

Portrait of the Artist

John Ryan Brubaker

Veins of Coal

Asturias Days

My Shadow

Smarty Pants Podcast

Wonderbrain

Inside the extraordinary minds of people who feel others’ emotions, hear hallucinations, and get lost in their own homes

Measure by Measure

Who’s the Boss?

When conductor and soloist clash, a concerto performance can turn into a contest of wills

View from Rue Saint-Georges

Strangers on a Train

A new perspective born of unexpected kindness

Article

Trading Places

In 1959, Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawks each made a film that bore hallmarks of the other’s work

Tuning Up

Gone Fishin’

Could two famous rivermen really have met their end while grappling giant fish in a Kansas river?

Asturias Days

The Sleeper

Read Me a Poem

“New Bones” by Lucille Clifton

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Portrait of the Artist

Natale Adgnot

Country couture

Smarty Pants Podcast

The Dangerous Dead

John Blair on the enduring epidemics of the undead

Web Essays

The Conspiracist Cotton Mather

The zealot who oversaw the Salem Witch Trials initially voiced restraint—what changed?

Web Essays

Baby Shoggoth Is Listening

Why are some writers tailoring their work for AI, and what does this mean for the future of writing and reading?

NEWSLETTER

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current issue

“My father lived an honorable life. He fulfilled his responsibilities to those who depended on him. Without question, he was a loving man, but there was something unknowable and untouchable about him. The optic nerve makes a blind spot at the back of the eye, though all vision depends on it.”—Karl Kirchwey, “All Shall Be Well”

Plus: J. Malcolm Garcia documents the struggle to survive a tent encampment in Oregon, Izidora Angel recounts a girlhood spent skinning her knees in 1980s communist Bulgaria, Eric McHenry goes fishing in the newspaper archives, and much more

“My father lived an honorable life. He fulfilled his responsibilities to those who depended on him. Without question, he was a loving man, but there was something unknowable and untouchable about him. The optic nerve makes a blind spot at the back of the eye, though all vision depends on it.”—Karl Kirchwey, “All Shall Be Well”

Plus: J. Malcolm Garcia documents the struggle to survive a tent encampment in Oregon, Izidora Angel recounts a girlhood spent skinning her knees in 1980s communist Bulgaria, Eric McHenry goes fishing in the newspaper archives, and much more

Article

Second and Long

Why did James Whitehead—poet, fiction writer, and onetime college football player—fail to complete a successor to his celebrated first novel?

Article

Blood-Blue Sky

How horseshoe crabs and ecological grief connect with the wonders of the human heart

Cover Story

Helping Doug

At a tent encampment in Oregon, one man struggles to survive as medical volunteers try to bring a measure of light to dark, uncertain days

Article

All Shall Be Well
loading

My father’s experiences aboard a World War II bomber became the narrative of a life he could never have invented

Article

Banana-Yellow Trabants

Skinning my knees in 1980s communist Bulgaria

Article

Second and Long

Why did James Whitehead—poet, fiction writer, and onetime college football player—fail to complete a successor to his celebrated first novel?

Article

Blood-Blue Sky

How horseshoe crabs and ecological grief connect with the wonders of the human heart

Cover Story

Helping Doug

At a tent encampment in Oregon, one man struggles to survive as medical volunteers try to bring a measure of light to dark, uncertain days

Article

All Shall Be Well
loading

My father’s experiences aboard a World War II bomber became the narrative of a life he could never have invented

Article

Banana-Yellow Trabants

Skinning my knees in 1980s communist Bulgaria