Essays

In 2014, we began running a biweekly series of essays to complement our Sunday Stories. This page collects them, as well as earlier essays that have appeared on Vol.1 Brooklyn.

If you would like to submit an essay for consideration for this series, please visit our submission form.

2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023

2013

Eden Consenstein, “New Age Now” | March 27, 2013

Lisa Wells, “She’s a Grand Old Flag: A Diary of Small Town America” | July 3, 2013

Zachary Lipez, “Why We Need to Borrow Your Drumset” | August 21, 2013

Ryan Chang, “Kleist and Kleist, or Failure as Transcendence” | September 12, 2013

Justin Maurer, “Aberdeen Skins Never Say Die” | October 8, 2013

Robert Wohner, “Meeting Kennedy” | October 16, 2013

 

2014

Anna Prushinskaya, “Facebook Cancer” | March 12, 2014

Wendy C. Ortiz, “Girlfriend” | March 26, 2014

John F. Kersey, “Some Notes on the Emergence of ASMR Theory” | April 9, 2014

Jenna Clark Embrey, “The Passion of St. Joan” | April 23, 2014

Victoria Comella, “What to Do When Your Heart Explodes” | May 7, 2014

Robin Grearson, “Two Guns” | June 4, 2014

Betty Rosen, “Pressing” | June 18, 2014

Ruth Gila Berger, “Certain Words Are Spider Webs” | July 2, 2014

Lori Jakiela, “Rough Air” | July 16, 2014

Dave Newman, “Ditch Digging for the Butcher Lie” | July 30, 2014

Alex Kalmaroff, “Kizhi Pogost” | August 27, 2014

Stuart Ross, “What’s a Travel Essay?” | September 10, 2014

A. A. Weiss, “Escape From Moldova” | September 24, 2014

Laryssa Wirstiuk, “Engagement Tofu” | October 8, 2014

Gerald Majer, “Bare Trees” | October 22, 2014

Jessica Machado, “Finding the Magic in Macy’s” | November 19, 2014

Kate Martin, “Date Night” | December 3, 2014

Rahawa Haile, “After Eric Garner” | December 5, 2014

Tobias Carroll, “Jason Molina Sings the Word ‘Endless’” | December 9, 2014

Christine Gosnay, “All of Us” | December 17, 2014

 

2015

Kelly Shetron, “A Year in New York” | January 14, 2015

Jessica Gross, “Vermont” | January 28, 2015

Tabitha Blankenbiller, “Aunt Eva Wore Hats” | February 11, 2015

Micah Ling, “The Poetry of Mail” | February 25, 2015

Fiona Helmsley, “Souvenirs” | March 11, 2015

Sarah Maria Medina, “The Girl in the Box” | March 25, 2015

Maura Roosevelt, “Stranger in a Freaky Land: Reading Miranda July in Los Angeles” | April 8, 2015

N. Michelle AuBuchon, “The Open Call” | April 22, 2015

Anna Qu, “Suburban Vertigo” | May 6, 2015

Glynn Pogue, “Limbo” | May 20, 2015

Michael Stutz, “The Weather of My Youth” | June 3, 2015

Andrew Bomback, “Welcome to All That” | June 17, 2015

Paula Bomer, “My Father’s Suicide and ‘The Days of Atonement’” | June 23, 2015

Nicholas Ward, “Sweat” | July 1, 2015

Lynn Steger Strong, “We Have No Money” | July 15, 2015

Jane Liddle, “Death and Daydreams” | July 29, 2015

Stephanie Feldman, “Failing in Art and in Life” | August 12, 2015

Ashley P. Taylor, “Middles” | August 26, 2015

Andrea Della Monica, “Kool Cigarettes” | September 9, 2015

Karen Lillis, “Lori Ellison and the Death of a Comrade” | September 10, 2015

Daniel Browne, “Substitute For Tears” | September 23, 2015

Tippy Rex, “Reading Out Loud” | October 7, 2015

Katherine Huff, “Future, Present, Past” | October 21, 2015

Christine Gosnay, “I Wear the Pants” | November 4, 2015

JoAnna Novak, “Presents” | November 18, 2015

Fiona Helmsley, “Disavowing Victim” | December 2, 2015

Tim Waldron, “A Better Personal Canon” | December 16, 2015

Patrick Thornton, “Door Wide Open” | December 30, 2015

 

2016

Ilana Garon, “Untwinning” | January 13, 2016

Douglas Light, “Roadie” | January 28, 2016

Sarah Herrington, “Coasting” | February 10, 2016

Kim Liao, “The Attic” | February 24, 2016

Devin Kelly, “What Could’ve Happened: On Thought in Fiction” | March 9, 2016

Gessy Alvarez, “Cancer and the MFA” | March 23, 2016

Donald Quist, “Till Next Time, Take Care of Yourselves and Each Other | April 9, 2016

Jessica Kashiwabara, “The Psychic” | April 23, 2016

Neil Scotten, “The Front” | May 4, 2016

Daniel Elder, “Sister’s Community Hardware” | May 18, 2016

Tess Scriptunas, “Fabienne, Ma Mère | June 1, 2016

Drew Nellins Smith, “Documentaries Taught Me How to Confess” | June 14, 2016

Emmanuel Adolf Alzuphar, “Canvas: Pianist Robert Glasper’s Incredible Jazz of Black Youth” | June 15, 2016

Daria Rae, “Digestion of Doubt” | June 29, 2016

Matthew Gavin Frank, “On Barbecued Ribs and Fallacious Independence” | July 1, 2016

Mike Faloon, “Fuel Consumption Way Too Fast” | July 20, 2016

Andrea Della Monica, “Honor Thy Father” | August 3, 2016

Micah Ling, “Eat ’em Beat ’em” | August 17, 2016

Lillian Ann Slugocki, “Requiem For Brooklyn and My Late Brother” | August 31, 2016

Terry Barr, “Listen to What the Man Said” | September 14, 2016

Fiona Helmsley, “My Idol Hates Me” | September 28, 2016

Jill Gallagher, “The Roof” | October 12, 2016

Anne Valente, “Writing the Midwest” | October 17, 2016

Kait Heacock, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Titles” | October 19, 2016

Jerry Portwood, “Xarli and His Dangerous Body Parts” | October 24, 2016

Libby Leonard, “How to Be With Others” | October 26, 2016

Justin Maurer, “White Light” | December 14, 2016

 

2017

Elizabeth Powell, “I Am So Not a Throggmorton” | January 11, 2017

Jason Christian, “Sometimes We Need A Guide” | January 25, 2017

Cassandra Morrison, “Ways to Become An Other Woman.” | February 8, 2017

Megan Kirby, “No Place Else” | February 22, 2017

Stephanie Jimenez, “On the Poetry of Isaac Brock” | March 8, 2017

Joe Bardin, “Showbiz” | March 22, 2017

Adrienne Celt, “Midnight in the Garden of Women” | April 5, 2017

Emily Weitzman, “The 6:52” | April 26, 2017

Oliver Zarandi, “We Live Above The Mutilated Floor” | May 10, 2017

Kate Jayroe, “Cleveland St” | May 24, 2017

Amy Bernhard, “The End of Something” | June 7, 2017

Rachel Veroff, “On Love and Catherine Deneuve” | June 21, 2017

Gabino Iglesias, “Fear and Loathing on the Road to Santa Fe” | June 27, 2017

Melissa Wiley, “Fruitless Forest” | July 5, 2017

Nancy Hightower, “Multiple Acts of Abandonment” | July 19, 2017

Mishka Shubaly, “Dancing to Mark Lanegan’s ‘Gargoyle.’” | August 2, 2017

Micah Ling, “Filling the Holes” | August 23, 2017

Anna Cabe, “‘Do You Hear the Train?’” | September 20, 2017

Brett Derouin, “Dear Édouard: I’m dreaming of depression” | September 27, 2017

Ada Carter, “Sketches” | October 11, 2017

Jaime Fountaine, “19, 16, and 1” | October 25, 2017

Rebecca van Laer, “The Wretched Ones: Love in the Time of AIM” | November 8, 2017

Dmitry Samarov, “The Vivian Mire (Revisited)” | November 14, 2017

Emma Sklar, “The Smoky Notes of Consent” | November 29, 2017

Keegan Lester, “[tour diary: huntington w.va]” | December 6, 2017

Jen Michalski, “The Edge of Thirteen” | December 20, 2017

 

2018

Afsheen Farhadi, “Stars in a Galaxy of Our Own Making” | January 10, 2018

Michelle Lyn King, “Imagine Me and You, I Do” | January 24, 2018

Alison B. Hart, “The Blue House” | February 7, 2018

Ashley P. Taylor, “Pollyanna Problems” | February 21, 2018

Kait Heacock, “Glossophobia” | February 27, 2018

Sarah Kasbeer, “Orcas in Space” | March 7, 2018

Martha Grover, “The Starfish” | March 21, 2018

Osama Shehzad, “Merge Conflict” | April 4, 2018

Andrew Schenker, “70-92” | April 18, 2018

Sean H. Doyle, “Pine America” | May 2, 2018

Julia Conrad, “24 Hours in Cremona” | May 16, 2018

Ashley P. Taylor, “Memory Palace” | June 6, 2018

Stephen Green, “Places” | June 20, 2018

Vanessa Blakeslee, “The Great Love Ambush” | July 5, 2018

Angela Brussel, “Dress Up” | July 18, 2018

Daniel Bowman Jr, “Suit” | August 8, 2018

Nate Waggoner, “Caricatures” | August 15, 2018

Andrew Bomback, “Our Vision of Sweatheart” | August 29, 2018

Sarah Van Bonn, “Methods of Transport” | September 12, 2018

Alice Riddell, “Inventory of my Bag” | October 3, 2018

Brandon Caro, “Mark” | October 17, 2018

Susan Harlan, “The Newspaper Clippings” | November 14, 2018

Henry Stimpson, “Optative Bop: Ping-Pong in Life and Literature” | November 28, 2018

Linnie Greene, “Fantastic Man” | December 19, 2018

 

2019

Rachel Ann Brickner, “The Back of the Box” | January 2, 2019

Joshua James Amberson, “Corrective” | January 16, 2019

Tabitha Blankenbiller, “Fangs” | January 30, 2019

Emily Weitzman, “Cork” | February 13, 2019

Aaron Shulman, “The Enchantments of Felicidad Blanc” | February 26, 2019

N. Michelle AuBuchon, “Tell Me How Much You Love It” | February 27, 2019

Jonathan Warner, “Chasing Uncle Park” | March 21, 2019

Alex DiFrancesco, “My Father’s Face” | April 3, 2019

Nate Waggoner, “Roy” | April 17, 2019

Dorothy Bendel, “A Track List for Piercing Tongues” | May 1, 2019

Eva Dunsky, “Peaceful, The World Lets Me Down” | May 15, 2019

Lisa Calcasola, “Firsts” | May 29, 2019

Rax King, “On Springsteen and Other Fathers” | June 19, 2019

Luna Adler, “Of Rats and Men” | June 26, 2019

Grace Elliott, “Personal Essay” | July 10, 2019

Patrick Kosiewicz, “Epitaph For Steve Cannon” | July 23, 2019

Karen Eileen Sikola, “End of the Dog Days” | July 24, 2019

Jessica Vestuto, “Self-Portraits and Empty Frames in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum” | August 7, 2019

Luke Wiget, “We Used To” | August 21, 2019

Nate Waggoner, “Steve Groove” | September 4, 2019

Stuart Ross, “In What Year Does Your Semiautobiographical Masterpiece Take Place?” | September 12, 2019

Filiz Turhan, “’Calamity and Despair’” | September 18, 2019

Joanna Stoberock, “Sunshine Gothic” | September 24, 2019

Molly Beach Murphy, “A Quarter Cup” | October 2, 2019

Erin Ambrose, “The archeologist/my body in archeology” | October 16, 2019

Grace Lu, “Becoming Tokyo Rose” | October 30, 2019

Sam Farahmand, “Lo and Behold” | November 19, 2019

Ben Miller, “The Rock in the Grate” | November 20, 2019

Janice Lee, “Books Are Not Products, They Are Bridges: Challenging Linear Ideas of Success in Literary Publishing” | December 4, 2019

Susannah Felts, “A Yellow Thread, or On Obsession” | December 11, 2019

 

2020

Sean Gandert, “Why You Should Write With a Cat” | January 9, 2020

Joe Winkler, “Sitting Shiva for Elizabeth Wurtzel” | January 15, 2020

Vanessa Blakeslee, “Country Medicine” | January 22, 2020

Audrey Moyce, “Types of Infinity” | February 12, 2020

Campbell Copland, “A Natural History of Vulnerability” | February 26, 2020

John Yohe, “On Teaching Again” | March 11, 2020

Monica Macansantos, “The Power of a Vacant House” | March 25, 2020

Elizabeth Kadetsky, “Asking Permission, or, My Education in Copyright Law” | March 31, 2020

Susan Rebecca White, “Working Title, or, How a Novel Is Full of False Starts” | April 2, 2020

Freda Epum, “Liquid Stories: Writing & Teaching the Personal as a POC in White Literary Spaces” | April 8, 2020

Kathe Koja, “The Normal Strange” | April 28, 2020

Jennifer Spiegel, “Holy Ground” | April 29, 2020

Joshua Bohnsack, “Mountain” | May 6, 2020

Amy Bobeda, “The Lovers” | May 27, 2020

Greg Mania, “Tour or No Tour” | June 17, 2020

Amy Kiger-Williams, “You Never Know” | July 1, 2020

William Lessard, “Sopranos Variations” | July 15, 2020

Keith Rosson, “Small and Quiet and Brave” | July 25, 2020

J. David, “In Defense of Joy” | July 29, 2020

Mike Faloon, “Pop Songs For an Unpredictable Time” | August 7, 2020

Seb Doubinsky, “Can One Write Dystopian Fiction in a Dystopian World?” | August 14, 2020

Tomoé Hill, “No Feet” | September 9, 2020

Kathe Koja, “All That Hunger” | September 21, 2020

Keith Kopka, “Punk Rock, Poetry & the Myth of Masculinity” | October 14, 2020

Andrew Farkas, “Bowl-a-Rama” | October 28, 2020

Alex DiFrancesco, “In Defense of Despair” | November 11, 2020

Marcie McCauley, “Playing Checkers in Brooklyn” | November 19, 2020

Eugen Bacon, “A Boundless Longing: Betwixt” | December 2, 2020

 

2021

Ashley P. Taylor, “Transableism, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Me” | January 6, 2021

Libby Leonard, “Lessons From a New York City Nail Guru” | January 26, 2021

Jesse Ludington, “Billie Jean and Me” | February 17, 2021

Lee Felice Pinkas, “Sontag on Heartbreak” | February 24, 2021

Siân Evans, “The Ghost of Karen Dalton” | March 17, 2021

Michael Stutz, “Safe In Heaven Dead” | March 31, 2021

Treena Thibodeau, “Lost Cat” | April 28, 2021

Logan Davis, “Salchow and Seminoma” | June 16, 2021

J.S. Breukelaar, “Notes From The Bridge” | June 26, 2021

Alex DiFrancesco, “Fishing, Painting, Fireflies, and Metaphor” | June 30, 2021

Beth O’Halloran, “Ode to the Queen of Strays” | July 7, 2021

J. Ashley-Smith, “Ambiguity is the Essence of the Supernatural” | July 22, 2021

Genevieve Sachs, “Sittin’ in the Back of My Memory: My Father and His Musical Commandments” | September 1, 2021

Kristen Millares Young, “How to Break Even” | September 29, 2021

Flávia Monteiro, “But then I started to drink with strangers” | October 6, 2021

Ró Stack, “Thoughts In Waiting” | October 21, 2021

Mary Burger, “All the Daemons in Paradise” | November 3, 2021

Jeehan Quijano, “Home” | November 18, 2021

Jenna Kunze, “Clothing I Have Loved and Lost” | December 8, 2021

 

2022

Claire Phillips, “The Stories That Save Us” | January 12, 2022

Michael Narkunski, “Happy Hour of the Wolf” | January 16, 2022

Logan Davis, “Hair After Chemo” | February 9, 2022

Eugen Bacon, “Telling It Straight? Bloody Oath.” | March 16, 2022

Paula Bomer, “The Punches” | March 31, 2022

Adrienne Celt, “Signs I Have Known” | April 20, 2022

Kathe Koja, “Make It Real” | May 11, 2022

Brandon Lewis, “The Enchanted Forest’s Edge” | May 26, 2022

Courtney Preiss, “Mary Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” | August 25, 2022

Amy Dupcak, “My Own Nirvana” | September 14, 2022

Martha Anne Toll, “Unlearning the Law: Novel Lessons” | September 21, 2022

Hunter Liguore, “Kinderkrankenhaus — On Forging a Neurodiverse Future Without Words” | October 12, 2022

Simon Graham, “Dirk” | October 26, 2022

Mark Neely, “No One Came to the Sea and Cake Concert” | October 31, 2022

Jennifer Spiegel, “Kids Without Horses (2022)” | November 9, 2022

 

2023

Erik Hall, “Dispatches From the Making of Canto Ostinato | February 6, 2023

Amy Bobeda, “The Wild Bride of BKLN” | February 15, 2023

Hantian Zhang, “Middle” | March 1, 2023

John Yohe, “My Sidewalk Stage” | March 29, 2023

Ashley D. Escobar, “Farewell Brooklyn” | April 12, 2023

Jeremy C. Shipp, “Why I Like Amusement Parks” | April 26, 2023

J. Ashley-Smith, “Sounds of an old house: a haunting memoir” | June 5, 2023

McKenzie Stubbert, “When Art Explains Art” | August 16, 2023

Jacquelin Winter, “These Are the Things You’ll Pass Down” | August 30, 2023

Ariana Kelly, “Black Box” | September 13, 2023