The Best American Essays 2018
Page 38
David Masello
A Rescue, Fine Art Connoisseur, July/August
Samuel Matlack
Quantum Poetics, The New Atlantis, Summer/Fall
Nancy McCabe
Ways to Tell a Story, The Florida Review, Fall
Tyler McCabe
The Many-Voiced God, Image, #93
Kyle McCarthy
Tell Me Your Name, Southwest Review, 102/2
Rebecca McClanahan
The New Couple in 5A, Literal Latte, Winter
Clint McCown
A Lesson from My Father’s Suitcase, Colorado Review, Fall/Winter
Maureen McCoy
Bats: Teen Worker, The Antioch Review, Fall
Karen Salyer McElmurray
Speaking Freely, South Dakota Review, 53/3&4
Michael N. McGregor
The Storycatcher, Notre Dame Magazine, Autumn
Frederick McKindra
Becoming Integrated, Oxford American, Fall
Kim McLarin
Eshu Finds Work, New England Review, 38/1
Molly McQuade
The Music in Brooklyn, Michigan Quarterly Review, Winter
Lisa Mecham
Only the Lonely, Big Truths, August
Lois Ruskai Melina
The Grammar of Untold Stories, Colorado Review, Fall/Winter
Sarah Menkedick
The Mexican American Dream, Pacific Standard, March/April
Sara Merchant
Memory Loss, East Jasmine Review, June 8
Alex Meyers
The End of Impersonation, River Styx, #99
Jeffrey Meyers
Tormented Victorians, The Antioch Review, Fall
Brenda Miller
The Shape of Emptiness, Brevity, September 15
Rajiv Mohabir
E Train to Roosevelt Making All Local Stops in Queens, Cherry Tree, #3
Feisal G. Mohamed
Occupational Hazard, The American Scholar, Autumn
Ander Monson
The Sadness of March: In Search of Extreme Emotion, The Normal School, Spring
Robert Moor
How to Cross a Field of Snow, Lapham’s Quarterly, Spring
Anne Elizabeth Moore
Three Days in Detroit, The Baffler, #37
Dinty W. Moore
Beyond the Primordial Ooze: “Real” Americans and the Supposed Divide Between Science and Religion, Creative Nonfiction, Fall
Angela Morales
Alive Girl Walking, Water-Stone Review, #20
Kyoko Mori
Homebodies, The American Scholar, Winter
Cherise Morris
blk grls x-ing, Fourth Genre, Spring
Kerry Muir
Blur, River Teeth, Spring
Kerry Neville
Manifestus, Juxtaprose, Summer
Aimee Nezhukumatathil
What Wonder Can Do, Water-Stone Review, #20
James Nolan
Seedtimes, Boulevard, Spring
Kathryn Nuernberger
“And Now Brightness Falls from the Air,” Lake Effect, #21
Mary O’Connell
Writing the Monsignor, Longreads, September
Mary Odden
March, Alaska Quarterly Review, Winter/Spring
Mary O’Donnell
My Mother, in Drumlin Country, New Hibernia Review, Spring
Meghan O’Gieblyn
Contemporaries, Ploughshares, Summer
W. Scott Olsen
On the Speed of Nostalgia, North Dakota Quarterly, Summer/Fall
Michael O’Rourke
Purgatory, Michigan Quarterly Review, Spring
Clarence Orsi
Take Stock, New England Review, 38/2
Randy Osborne
Grouse Wing Barrel: A Letter, Gutwrench, February 27
Gail Overstreet
The Philosophy of Stars, Delmarva Review, #10
Alexis Paige
Common Purple Lilac, Full Grown People, June 29
Morgan Parker
Are We Not Entertained? Lenny, September 8
Leslie Jill Patterson
Remote Control, Under the Gum Tree, October
Nick Paumgarten
Quitters, The Sewanee Review, Fall
Kirie Pedersen
Getting a Life—Coming of Age with Killers, Under the Sun, Summer
Robert L. Pela
Dear Phoenix, Phoenix New Times, September 29/October 4
Dale Pendell
Tracing the Pluton, Catamaran, Spring
Clinton Crockett Peters
Water Bugs: A Story of Absolution, The Southern Review, Summer
Farah Peterson
Illness and Identity, Ploughshares, Winter
Steven M. Phelps
Touched, Aeon, April 4
Taylor Plimpton
Expressing the Inexpressible, Tricycle, Winter
John Poch
Freight Dreams, Five Points, 18/2
Katha Pollitt
On Game of Thrones, Salmagundi, Summer/Fall
Liz Prato
Flights of Two, Sport Literate, 10/2
Shelley Puhak
Pulling Teeth, The Iowa Review, Spring
Donald Quist
Thieves, AGNI, #86
Emily Raboteau
The Curse, Freeman’s, April
Lavanya Ramanathan
Other, The Washington Post Magazine, March 12
David Raney
Chances Are, Post Road, #33
Kathryn Rhett
La Belle Indifference, Harvard Review, #50
Jim Ringley
Another Small Repair, The Chattahoochee Review, Spring
Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers
The Magic Show, The Missouri Review, 40/2
Lisa Romeo
An Attractive Portal to Uncertainty, Harpur Palate, 16/1
Robin Romm
Heavy Metal: An Essay on Certainty, The Missouri Review, 40/3
David Rompf
Yesterday Is a Wild Parrot, Wildness, October
Lee Ann Roripaugh
Anhedonia in the Anthropocene, South Dakota Review, 53/3&4
Roger Rosenblatt
Ten Dead Darlings, KROnline, September/October
Peter Ross
Saving Orwell, Boston Review, October
Daniel Rousseau
Retrieving Charlie Gehringer: How a Soldier Escaped the Nazis on the Back of a Tiger, The Briar Cliff Review, #29
Colter Ruland
Bolaji Badejo as the Xenomorph in Alien (1979), Good Night, Sweet Prince, December 12
Jay Ruttenberg
White Light, The Lowbrow Reader, #10
Natasha Sajé
Guilt: A Love Story (2006–2011), Dogwood, #16
Scott Loring Sanders
House For Sale by Owner, Zone 3, Spring
Reg Saner
Bad Books, The Georgia Review, Summer
D. J. Savarese
Passive Plants, The Iowa Review, Spring
Katherine Schaefer
Edna, with Her Mouth, Hunger Mountain, April 12
Ari N. Schulman
What Is It Like to Know? The New Atlantis, Winter
David Sedaris
Letter from Emerald Isle, The Paris Review, Fall
Peter Selgin
The Opening Credits to Rebel Without a Cause, The Gettysburg Review, Summer
Heather Sellers
Termites, Five Points, 18/1
Lynda Sexson
The Infant Shoes of Polonius, The Gettysburg Review, Summer
Gary Shteyngart
Time Out, The New Yorker, March 20
Jackie Sizemore
Gaijin, Eastern Iowa Review, Summer
Ann Tashi Slater
Teatime in Darjeeling, Tin House, #74
Rebecca Solnit
Preaching to the Choir, Harper’s Magazine, November
Rivers Solomon
Black Girl Going Mad, Guernica, December 4
Watching a Fall, Boulevard, Fall
Mairead Small Staid
Second Person, The Southern Review, Summer
A. E. Stallings
Shipwreck Is Everywhere, The Hudson Review, Autumn
T. J. Stiles
The Nearer Mirror, ZYZZYVA, Winter
Matt Stoller
The Hamilton Hustle, The Baffler, #34
Robert Stothart
Nighthawks, The Florida Review, Spring
Ira Sukrungruang
Sensitive Boy, KROnline, November/December
Julija Sukys
There Be Monsters, Passages North, #38
John Jeremiah Sullivan
Death Rattle, Oxford American, Winter
Kelly Sundberg
Mates, Gulf Coast, Winter/Spring
Mark Sundeen
Beyond Empire’s Grip, Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter
Caroline Sutton
The Puritans: The Original Cyberbullies, Tampa Review, #54
Cyn Grace Sylvie
Last Minute Travellers, Epiphany, Spring/Summer
Ashley P. Taylor
A Life Story, Entropy, March 30
Corvin Thomas
Catching the Westbound, The Sun, September
Cassidy Norvell Thompson
Witness Tree, Gulf Coast, Winter/Spring
Deborah Thompson
Rescue Dogs, Jabberwock Review, Summer
Susan Thornton
We Named Her Amelia, Hawai’i Pacific Review, December 7
Sallie Tisdale
The Hinge, ZYZZYVA, Spring/Summer
Alex Tizon
Lola’s Story, The Atlantic, June
Rachel Toliver
My Cartographies, Mid-American Review, XXXVIII/1
Natalie Tomlin
The Position We Were In, Midwestern Gothic, Summer
Alison Townsend
In My Grandmother’s Province: An American Interior, Chautauqua, #14
E. M. Tran
Miss Saigon, Prairie Schooner, Spring
Calvin Trillin
Final Cut, The New Yorker, September 11
Debbie Urbanski
A List of My Utopias, The Sun, April
Sarah Vallance
My Rabies Diary, Bellingham Review, Spring
Yael van der Wouden
On (Not) Reading Anne Frank, The Sun, December
Corey Van Landingham
Antebellum, Michigan Quarterly Review, Fall
Primo Ventello
Strada Della Morte, New Letters, 83/4
Alia Volz
Finding El Saez, Nowhere Magazine, June
Wyn Wachhorst
The Case for Wonder, The Yale Review, July
Julie Marie Wade
503A, The Iowa Review, Winter
Jerald Walker
The Designated Driver, Harvard Review, #50
Carvell Wallace
Obama’s Parting Gift, The New Yorker, Online, January 19
Jay Wamstead
Walls, Little Patuxent Review, Summer
Miranda Weiss
A Fleeting Resource: In Praise of the Deep Cold, Literary Hub, December 4
Sarah Wells
Not-My-Husband, Ascent, November 17
Carolyn Williams-Noren
Comfort on the Death of an Ancient Oak, Willow Springs, Fall
Gregory Wolfe
The Erasmus Option, Image, #94
Elana Wolff
Faithfully Seeking Franz: The Office Stop, New Madrid, Summer
Lia Woodall
“ . . .”, Literal Latte, Spring
Emily Woodworth
All the While, Under the Sun, Summer
Karen Tei Yamashita
Letters to Memory, Catamaran, Summer
Bro. Yao (Hoke S. Glover III)
Hospital for the Negro Insane, Crab Orchard Review, #21
Courtney Zoffness
It May All End in Aleppo, Arts & Letters, Fall
Notable Special Issues of 2017
Bellevue Literary Review, Finding Home: Family & Connections, ed. Danielle Ofri, Fall
Bennington Review, Threat, ed. Michael Dumanis, Summer
Boston Review, Global Dystopias, ed. Junot Díaz, October
Chautauqua, Invention & Discovery, ed. Jill Gerard and Philip Gerard, #14
Chicago Quarterly Review, The South Asian American Issue, guest ed. Moazzam Sheikh, #24
Conjunctions, Inside Out: Architectures of Experience, ed. Bradford Morrow, #68
Creative Nonfiction, Adaptation, ed. Lee Gutkind, Summer
Ecotone, The Craft Issue, ed. Anna Lena Phillips Bell, Fall/Winter
Fifth Wednesday Journal, Voices from the Middle East and North Africa, ed. Vern Miller and Hedy Habra, Fall
Freeman’s, Home, ed. John Freeman, April
Granta, Journeys, ed. Sigrid Rausing, #138
Grist, Tenth Anniversary Issue, ed. Richard Hermes, #10
Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Marginalized and the Avant-Garde, ed. Dustin Pearson, Spring/Summer
Image, Life in the Dark: The Film Issue, eds. Gareth Higgins and Scott Teems, #93
Isthmus, Politics, ed. Ann Przyzycki, Kelly Daniels, Jody Keisner, #6
Lapham’s Quarterly, Home, ed. Lewis H. Lapham, Winter
The Literary Review, Current Events: The 60th Anniversary Issue, ed. Mina Zallman Proctor, Fall
Little Patuxent Review, Prisons, ed. Steven Leyva, Winter
The Massachusetts Review, Truth, ed. Jim Hicks, Winter
The Nation, The Obama Years, ed. Katrina vanden Heuvel, January 2/9
New Literary History, Aesthetics Now, ed. Rita Felski, Spring
North Dakota Quarterly, Transnational, guest eds. Cigdem Pala Mull, Sharon Carson, Gayatri Devi, Winter/Spring
Orion, Nature & Culture at a Turning Point, ed. H. Emerson Blake, Winter
The Point, What Is Comedy For? eds. Jon Baskin, Ollie Cussen, and Rachel Wiseman, Summer
Prism, Liminal, eds. Kyla Jamieson and Shazia Hafiz Ramji, Fall
Room, Migration, ed. Nav Nagra, 40/3
Salmagundi, Better Living Through TV, eds. Robert Boyers and Peg Boyers, Summer/Fall
Texas Monthly, Hurricane Harvey, ed. Tim Taliaferro, October
The Threepenny Review, A Symposium on Neighborhoods, ed. Wendy Lesser, Fall
Tin House, Rehab, ed. Rob Spillman, #71
Transition, Roots Reconsidered, guest eds. Kellie Carter Jackson and Erica L. Ball, #122
VICE Magazine, The Music Issue, ed. Ellis Jones, October/November
Water-Stone Review, Field. Body. Country., ed. Mary Francois Rockcastle, #20
Yellow Medicine Review, 10th Anniversary Retrospective, ed. Judy Wilson, Spring
ZYZZYVA, Art & Resistance Amid Turmoil, ed. Laura Cogan, Winter
Note:
The following essays should have appeared in “Notable Essays and Literary Nonfiction of 2016”:
Krista Christensen, Etymologies, New Ohio Review, #19
Maria Eliades, Leaving Istanbul, The Puritan, Fall
Amye Day Ong, Chest Percussions, Image, #91
Jeny Spinner, Those Stairs, Kentucky English Bulletin, Spring
Marian Ryan, Things I Never Told Her, Granta, Online ed., November 21
Visit www.hmhco.com to find all of the books in the Best American series.
About the Editors
Hilton Als, guest editor, became a staff writer at The New Yorker in 1994 and a theater critic in 2002. Previously, Als was a staff writer for the Village Voice and an editor at large at Vibe. His first book, The Women, was published in 1996. His most recent book, White Girls, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the winner of the Lambda Literary Award in 2014, discusses various narratives of race and gender. He won the Pulitzer Prize in criticism in 2017.
Robert Atwan, the series editor of The Best American Essays since its inception in 1986, has published on a wide variety of subjects, from Am
erican advertising and early photography to ancient divination and Shakespeare. His criticism, essays, humor, poetry, and fiction have appeared in numerous periodicals nationwide.
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