An obituary of Norma McCorvey, aka “Jane Roe,” the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that yielded the legalization of abortion. McCorvey later became a born-again Christian, had a change of heart, revised parts of her story including recanting the part about having become pregnant while being raped, and became an anti-abortion activist.
Sari Botton
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Humanizing Properties of Depression: Daphne Merkin Talks to Gabby Bess
At Broadly, Gabby Bess — a writer who has depression — interviews life-long sufferer Daphne Merkin, and reviews Merkin’s new memoir, This Close to Happy: A Reckoning With Depression.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
‘O Says I Must Keep a Journal’: Bill Hayes’s Diary of Loving Oliver Sacks
BuzzFeed has a touching, intimate excerpt of Insomniac City: New York, Oliver and Me, Bill Hayes’s memoir of his relationship with late neuroscientist and author Oliver Sacks. 10-13-16 I, soaking in the bath, O on the toilet, talking, talking about what he’s been thinking and writing — short personal pieces, for a memoir perhaps. He […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Spending Your Entire Life Wanting to Die
A profile of author Daphne Merkin, whose new memoir, This Close to Happy: A Reckoning With Depression, chronicles her six decades living with deep depression and suicidal thoughts.
Posted inEditor's Pick
What It Was Like To Love Oliver Sacks
A moving excerpt of Insomniac City: New York, Oliver and Me, author Bill Hayes’s new memoir of his intimate relationship with late neuroscientist and author Oliver Sacks.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
All You Have to Bring is Your Love of Everything
Ada Calhoun writes, in Elle, about a weekend getaway with her husband to the kind of “romantic” Poconos resort she used to see advertised on television as a kid. Could a couple of nights away from their kid and all the post-election news — not to mention sleeping on a bed beneath a mirrored ceiling, […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
My Weekend at a Sex Lodge
Feeling depressed post-election and run down by the rigors of parenthood, Ada Calhoun and her husband try to rekindle their spark at the kind of “romantic” Poconos resort she saw advertised on television as a kid–champagne-glass-shaped jacuzzi and all.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Read the Letter Coretta Scott King Wrote Opposing Sessions’s 1986 Federal Nomination
On Tuesday, February 7th, Elizabeth Warren was silenced by Republicans at Jeffrey Sessions’s confirmation hearing as Attorney General, because she read aloud Coretta Scott King’s March 19, 1986 letter to Senator Strom Thurmond opposing Sessions’ appointment as a Federal Judge for the Southern District of Alabama. King’s objection stemmed from Sessions’ alleged attempts to intimidate […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Porochista Khakpour on Starving as a Young Novelist
Lit Hub has a compelling essay by “The Last Illusion” author Porochista Khakpour about her struggle to survive early in her career as a novelist.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Portrait of the Artist as a Debut Novelist
An essay by Iranian-American novelist Porochista Khakpour (excerpted from Scratch: Writers, Money and the Art of Making a Living, edited by Manjula Martin) about the challenges of surviving financially in her early years as a writer. Her struggle was compounded by being a writer of color with an unusual name, from a country whose president […]