SELECTED ESSAYS
A Common Seagull an essay about death, mourning, the artist Pierre Bonnard, and how to make a vital life out of repetitions and sameness, rather than newness and adventure. Published in The Yale Review in December 2019. Delivered at the Tate Modern in Britain in March 2018.
Why Go Out? a lecture delivered at Trampoline Hall, published in Brick, March 2006.
What the Nobel Prize-Winner Annie Ernaux Understands About the Past an essay commissioned by the New York Times upon the author’s Nobel Prize; October 8, 2022.
Should Artists Shop or Stop Shopping? an essay about the artist Sara Cwynar and the questions surrounding online shopping and whether it's a form of creativity, printed in the art journal Affadavit, May 2018.
Finding Raffi, a profile of the world's most popular children's singer, published in Vulture, December 2015.
I Didn't Like Sitting With the Rattle For Hours, an art essay for The Brooklyn Rail about the motherhood paintings of Paula Modersohn-Becker and Mary Cassatt, October 2017.
Down the Rabbit Hole (PDF), an oral history about The Mad Hatter, the craziest children's party venue in the world, which happened to be in Toronto in the 80s. Published in The Grid, October 2011. (Please note that this is not the final-final version of this article, but a pre-proof version. The Grid no longer exists and this is the best that remains.)
On the Importance of Finding Trusted Readers, about how writers collaborate and help each other before their books are published; how writers are each others’ first and often most important readers. From the afterword to How Should One Read a Book? by Virginia Woolf, republished on Lithub on November 16. 2020.
On the Geometry of Stories from an introduction to a reissue of the Virginia Woolf essay, How Should One Read a Book? The essay takes up her ideas about the “shapes” of books. Republished online on Electric Lit, October 12, 2020.
A Right-Sized Dream, an appreciation of Moomin author Tove Jansson, first published in the Drawn & Quarterly 25th Year Anniversary Book and republished in The Paris Review, July 2015.
Sisters of the Moon, a meeting between Stevie Nicks and the band Haim, published in The New York Times Magazine, October 2014.
Windows on the World, about the view outside the window in Sheila Heti's study, commissioned and illustrated by Matteo Pericoli for The Paris Review, and later collected in Periocoli's book, Windows on the World: Fifty Writers, Fifty Views, published by Penguin, September 2012.
Law of Small Numbers, a consideration of Leonard Mlodinow's book, The Drunkard's Walk. Published in Geist, December 2009.
What Annie Knew, an essay for Peter Terzian's book Heavy Rotation (Harper Perennial) on the albums that changed our lives, republished in n+1, June 2009.
Off The Pedestal, a consideration of Richard Serra's Shift, installed in King City, Ontario. Published in Geist, December 2006.