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dying

Posted inEssays & Criticism, Feature, Featured, Nonfiction, Story

Searching Sephora for an Antidote to Aging — and Grief

by Abby Mims January 14, 2020December 30, 2022

Five years after her mother’s death, while still grieving and suddenly middle-aged, Abby Mims turns to beauty products to cure what ails her.

Posted inEditor's Pick

‘I Believe in Love’: Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Final Year, In Her Own Words

by Sari Botton January 9, 2020October 19, 2022

Memoirist Elizabeth Wurtzel was working on this, her final personal essay, when she passed away on January 7th, 2020 from metastatic breast cancer. In the piece she reveals that as her health was declining, her marriage was unraveling, and that she was still wrestling with new information her mother finally revealed a couple of years […]

Posted inEssays & Criticism, Feature, Featured, Nonfiction, Quotes

A Beloved Art Critic Sings His Swan Song

by Sari Botton December 24, 2019October 19, 2022

“Drink was destroying my life. Tobacco only shortens it, with the best parts over anyway.”

Posted inEditor's Pick

The Art of Dying

by Sari Botton December 19, 2019October 19, 2022

In this long, kitchen-sink essay, long-time New Yorker writer and art critic Peter Schjeldahl reveals that he is dying of lung cancer. He poignantly looks back at his life and career, and his history as a smoker.

Posted inEditor's Pick

Why I Wanted to Finish My Father’s Life’s Work

by Sari Botton December 4, 2019October 19, 2022

In this personal essay, Karen Brown recalls the pain and joy of fulfilling a deathbed promise.

Posted inEssays & Criticism, Feature, Featured, Nonfiction, Story

Why I Wanted To Finish My Father’s Life’s Work

by Karen Brown December 4, 2019October 19, 2022

Karen Brown recalls the pain and joy of fulfilling a deathbed promise.

Posted inNonfiction

A Woman’s Work: Till Death Do Us Part

by Carolita Johnson October 28, 2019January 20, 2023

Carolita Johnson considers the emotional and physical labor required of women as their loved ones die.

Posted inNonfiction

The Girl I Didn’t Save

by Longreads September 30, 2019January 27, 2023

Cameron Dezen Hammon reflects on her frustrations as a Christian music minister for the terminally ill, unable to heal a cancer patient she cared for, and struggling to be compassionate at her belligerent Jewish father’s bedside.

Posted inEssays & Criticism, Feature, Featured, Nonfiction, Story

How to Predict the Unpredictable

by Katie Gutierrez September 23, 2019January 27, 2023

After the death of her dog, Katie Gutierrez grapples with the ripple effects of her decisions — and how to live with uncertainty as a mother.

Posted inEssays & Criticism, Feature, Featured, Nonfiction, Story

Keeping My Promise to Popo

by Anne Liu Kellor September 18, 2019January 27, 2023

As Anne Liu Kellor says goodbye to her Chinese grandmother in the hospital, she taps into buried memories and family trauma.

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