what will happen to the “the writers, the thinkers, and the pundits,” as Ta-Nehisi Coates put it, “who cannot separate the great crime of Kirk’s death from the malignancy of his public life?” Will they retreat further away from anything resembling criticism? And then who will pin this moment to the spider’s web? Who will marshal the context and... See more

An essay is a personal reflection that links individual experience to socially relevant ideas. You might begin with the particulars of your own life, or, the broader patterns of culture, but eventually you have to bridge the two. An essayist fuses many genres—the pen of a poet, the imagination of novelist, the persuasion of a marketer, the research... See more