SPOTLIGHT

The Writer in the Family

The fiction of E. L. Doctorow gave a young man hope of connecting his father and his literary hero

By Jonathan Liebson Wednesday, January 8, 2025

SPOTLIGHT

The Writer in the Family

The fiction of E. L. Doctorow gave a young man hope of connecting his father and his literary hero

By Jonathan Liebson Wednesday, January 8, 2025

Web Essays

What I Don’t Know

At the heart of my family tree are only questions and mysteries

Works in Progress

Salt of the Earth

Asturias Days

The Vice of Asking

Read Me a Poem

“The Love I Gave You Once” by Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Book Reviews

Arctic Fantasies

The region has long been an object of dreams, desire, and misunderstanding

Web Essays

God and Hip-Hop

Finding the sacred in the profane

Smarty Pants Podcast

Hashtag Lit

Leah Price on how books were social media all along

Web Essays

The Story of a Stare Down

How two antagonists from Tudor England ended up facing each other on Fifth Avenue

Shelf Life

On the Road

An excerpt from Vagabond: Venice Beach, Slab City and Points in Between by Ceilidh Michelle

Asturias Days

Birthday Boy

Read Me a Poem

“The Horses” by Ted Hughes

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Portrait of the Artist

Amy Wetsch

Life, magnified

Article

The Weight of a Stone

Searching for stability in an erratic world led Oliver Sacks and other writers to the realms of geology

Asturias Days

New Year, Old Year

Read Me a Poem

“The Horses” by Edwin Muir

Poems read aloud, beautifully

Smarty Pants Podcast

The Snow Maiden

Our final episode of 2018 is a send-off to the solstice

Smarty Pants Podcast

Ho Ho Horror

Why not make this Christmas a little darker?

Asturias Days

A Story for Christmas

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current issue

Old Christ Church in Alexandria. Virginia, attended by General Robert E. Lee in his youth and pictured here in 1911 (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign/Wikimedia Commons)
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Old Christ Church in Alexandria. Virginia, attended by General Robert E. Lee in his youth and pictured here in 1911 (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign/Wikimedia Commons)
Book Reviews

Divided Providence

Faith’s pivotal role in the outcome of the Civil War

Article

The Fair Fields
loading

Only rarely did the outside world intrude on an idyllic Connecticut childhood, but in the tumultuous 1960s, that intrusion included an encounter with evil

Poetry

The Art of Tuning In

Celebrating 20 years of poetry in the Scholar

Commonplace Book

Winter 2025