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.
dying
Posted inEditor's Pick
‘I Believe in Love’: Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Final Year, In Her Own Words
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
“Drink was destroying my life. Tobacco only shortens it, with the best parts over anyway.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Art of Dying
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
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
Karen Brown recalls the pain and joy of fulfilling a deathbed promise.
Posted inNonfiction
A Woman’s Work: Till Death Do Us Part
Carolita Johnson considers the emotional and physical labor required of women as their loved ones die.
Posted inNonfiction
The Girl I Didn’t Save
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
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
As Anne Liu Kellor says goodbye to her Chinese grandmother in the hospital, she taps into buried memories and family trauma.