Historian Amir Alexander on Euclidean geometry’s far-reaching effects.
Profiles & Interviews
Posted inNonfiction
‘People Can Become Houses’
In her debut memoir, Sarah Broom builds her “obsession” with her family home — destroyed in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina — into a story of how families decide who they are, how they got here, and how they reconstruct themselves over and over again.
Posted inNonfiction
Truly Seeing the River: An Interview with Writer Boyce Upholt
Writing about the culture and beauty of the Mississippi Delta requires seeing the mighty river as more than a line of water.
Posted inNonfiction
‘To Be Polite By Ignoring the Obvious’: Jess Row on Unpacking Whiteness in Literature
“I was looking for texts that seem to go the extra mile in hiding something — texts that almost seem to be begging to be interpreted in terms of what’s not being said.”
Posted inStory
‘I’m Incredulous That People Do This Repeatedly. The Second Book Thing Is So Real.’
Mary H.K. Choi discusses her latest novel, which examines how “holograms and digital envoys” represent us online, and why it feels like her “second book signals the death of my first.”
Posted inBooks, Fiction, History, Profiles & Interviews, Story
‘Nobody in This Book Is Going to Catch a Break’: Téa Obreht on “Inland”
‘The history of the West is a deeply turbulent one… that kept the living population in a constant state of unrest. I thought this constant state of unrest must be true for the dead as well.’
Posted inStory
‘Victims Become This Object of Fascination… This Silent Symbol.’
Rachel Monroe talks about the pitfalls of the true crime genre. “I had this feeling like I can see the whole thing and nobody else understands… That’s a real trap that we as reporters can fall in.”
Posted inNonfiction
‘The Survivor’s Edit’: Bassey Ikpi on Memory, Truth, and Living with Bipolar II
Bassey Ikpi discusses writing about mental illness. “I could count on the morning. It became the thing that existed without my input… without determining whether or not I was worthy of it.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Looking for Carolina Maria de Jesus
For a brief period in the 1960s, the Afro-Brazilian author of the memoir “Child of the Dark” was one of the most well-known writers in the world.
Posted inStory
Images Present Themselves: A Conversation With Photographer Burk Uzzle
Some of the most iconic images get captured when you’re just out for a stroll. What you do with these images is a political act.