The Best American Essays 2017
Page 38
ADAM EWING
In/Visibility, Transition, no. 119
ALTHEA FANN
What Flowers Mean, Crazyhorse, Fall
BETH ANN FENNELLY
Y’all’s Problem, The Chattahoochee Review, Spring
GARY FINCKE
Hearts, Ascent, May 12
COLIN FLEMING
A Midshipman Lights Out, Salmagundi, Spring/Summer
MATTHEW GAVIN FRANK
On Naming Bones, or, How to Ship a Mosquito, 1966: A Journal of Creative Nonfiction, Winter
JONATHAN FRANZEN
The End of the End of the World, The New Yorker, May 23
ERICA FUNKHOUSER
One Salt Marsh, One Hawk, One Swimmer, Harvard Review, no. 49
NEAL GABLER
My Secret Shame, The Atlantic, May
MEGAN GALBRAITH
Sin Will Find You Out, Catapult, March 1
J. MALCOLM GARCIA
If You Raise a Mexican Flag in America, Latterly, October
EMILY GEMINDER
Choreograph, Agni, no. 83
DIANA HUME GEORGE
In the House of Habakkuk, Chautauqua, no. 13
DAVID GESSNER
The Taming of the Wild, The American Scholar, Summer
DENISE GIARDINA
Candy, Appalachian Heritage, Fall
RENEE GLADMAN
Five Things, The Paris Review, Summer
ERIK GLEIBERMANN
Soothing the Serpent’s Tooth, The Florida Review, Summer
ELIZABETH GOLD
So It Begins, The Gettysburg Review, Spring
ANNE GOLDMAN
The Kingdom of the Medusae, Southwest Review, vol. 101, no. 2
RIGOBERTO GONZALEZ
Dias de los Muertos: A Oaxaco Journal, Apogee, no. 8
ADAM GOPNIK
Feel Me, The New Yorker, May 16
EMILY FOX GORDON
Mr. Sears, Ploughshares, Summer
MICHAEL GRAFF
Man Alone, Success, September
PETER GRANDBOIS
Honor, North Dakota Quarterly, Winter
SARAH GRIGG
Medicine Wings, Boulevard, Spring
STEPHEN D. GUTIERREZ
The Case for Steve Gutierrez, Waccamaw, Fall
DEBRA GWARTNEY
Into Every Life Some Rain Must Fall, Creative Nonfiction, Fall
SHAHNAZ HABIB
A Letter to My Daughter About Palindromes, Agni, no. 84
KATHLEEN HALE
Through the Looking Glass: A Week at Miss America, Mary Review, Fall
CLAIRE HALLIDAY
The Possible Universe, The Sun, September
CAMERON DEZEN HAMMON
Infirmary Music, The Literary Review, Summer
LARRY HANDY
What to Do When Grandma Has Dementia, Rivet, no. 9
SILAS HANSEN
What Real Men Do, The Normal School, Fall
RACHEL MICHELLE HANSON
Ways of Leaving, American Literary Review, Spring
DANIEL HARRIS
The Kardashians, Southwest Review, vol. 101, no. 4
STEPHANIE HARRISON
What We Have Left, Colorado Review, Summer
NATHAN HELLER
The Big Uneasy, The New Yorker, May 30
SARA HENDERY
Dangerous Language, Creative Nonfiction, Summer
ARIEL HENLEY
White Noise, The Rumpus, October 3
MICHAEL J. HESS
On the Morning After the Crash, Sport Literate, vol. 10, no. 1
ERIK P. HOEL
Fiction in the Age of Screens, The New Atlantis, Spring/Summer
BROOKE HOLMES
Tragedy in the Crosshairs of the Present, Daedalus, Spring
ANN HOOD
Imagine, The Normal School, Spring
LAUREN HOUGH
‘The Shepherds, Granta, no. 137
CARLYNN HOUGHTON
Letter to a Stranger: US Route 17, New York, Off Assignment, May 12
PAT C. HOY II
Habitations, The Sewanee Review, Summer
EWA HRYNIEWICZ-YARBROUGH
Little Bowls of Colors, The American Scholar, Autumn
SONYA HUBER
If Woman Is Five, River Teeth, Spring
BARBARA HURD
Glimpses, Orion, November/December
SIRI HUSTVEDT
Sontag on Smut: Fifty Years Later, Salmagundi, Spring/Summer
AMY IRVINE
Conflagrations, Pacific Standard, July/August
DIONNE IRVING
Treading Water, The Missouri Review, vol. 39, no. 2
LUCY IVES
Sodom, LLC, Lapham’s Quarterly, Fall
RONALD JACKSON
Camille: A Memory, The Chattahoochee Review, Spring
HEATHER JACOBS
Seven Portraits/Siete Retratos, Fifth Wednesday, Fall
LESLIE JAMISON
The Persephone Complex, Water-Stone Review, no. 19
BROOKE JARVIS
When I Die, Harper’s Magazine, January
ANNA JOURNEY
Little Face, Agni, no. 84
GARRET KEIZER
Solidarity and Survival, Lapham’s Quarterly, Spring
RALPH KEYES
Inscriber’s Block, The American Scholar, Spring
ALISON KINNEY
History in Wax, Lapham’s Quarterly, April 11
WALTER KIRN
Crossing the Valley, Harper’s Magazine, April
CATHRYN KLUSMEIER
Crucifixions, Crazyhorse, Fall
KIM DANA KUPPERMAN
Memorial Daze (It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry), Aster(ix), Fall
JOHN LAHR
Hooker Heaven, Esquire, June/July
LAURIE CLEMENTS LAMBETH
Going Downhill from Here, Ecotone, Spring
BARTH LANDOR
Forty Passages for Shakespeare, The Georgia Review, Summer
LANCE LARSEN
Heavenly Hits, The Gettysburg Review, Winter
PETER LASALLE
Driving in São Paulo at Night with a Good Friend Who Has Died, The Southern Review, Spring
LIZ LATTY
What We Lost: Undoing the Fairy Tale Myth of Adoption, The Rumpus, November 17
DAVID LAZAR
Five Autobiographical Fragments, or She May Have Been a Witch, River Teeth, Fall
ANNA LEAHY
Sweet Dreams Are Made of This, Dogwood, no. 15
REBECCA LEE
The Rules of Engagement, Able Muse, Summer
ALEX LEMON
How Long Before You Go Dry, River Teeth, Fall
DINAH LENNEY
A Longer Reach, Los Angeles Review of Books, November 28
JOAN LI
Something That Lasts, Chicago Quarterly Review, Fall
MARGIT LIESCHE
The Ocean Between Us, Chicago Quarterly Review, Fall
ANYA LIFTIG
Irretrievable Breakdown, bioStories, September
BRANDON LINGLE
Turbulence, The American Scholar, Autumn
MEL LIVATINO
Going Home Again, Under the Sun, no. 4
SONJA LIVINGSTON
Spools of White Thread, 1966: A Journal of Creative Nonfiction, Winter
PHILLIP LOPATE
Red Relations, Mount Hope, Fall
DAVID STUART MACLEAN
Golden Friendship Club, Bennington Review, Spring/Summer
PATRICK MADDEN
Missing, Portland, Spring
EMILY ST. JOHN MANDEL
The Year of Numbered Rooms, Humanities, Spring
LUCAS MANN
Trying to Get Right, Guernica, April 15
ALEX MAR
Blood Ties, Oxford American, Spring
MARTINO MARAZZI
Amelia, The Carolina Quarterly, Summer
STEPHEN MARCHE
The Age of Ephemerality, Brick, no. 96
CLANCY MARTIN
Seven Times Inside, Vice, November
DAVID MASELLO
Building Friendships, American Arts Quarterly, July
REBECCA MCCLANAHAN
Wren Boy, River Teeth, Spring
ELIZABETH MCCRACKEN
The Container & the Thing Contained, Harvard Review, no. 49
LATANYA MCQUEEN
After Water Comes the Fires, Bennington Review, Fall/Winter
JOHN MCWHORTER
Thick of Tongue, Guernica, March 15
DAVID MEANS
The Old Man, Harper’s Magazine, June
ANDREW MENARD
Blind Spot, The Georgia Review, Spring
S. J. MILLER
A Merry Little Christmas, The Sun, May
CAILLE MILLNER
Four Murders, Michigan Quarterly Review, Winter
THOMAS MIRA Y LOPEZ
Capricci, Alaska Quarterly Review, Spring/Summer
DAVE MONDY
And We’ll See You Tomorrow Night, The Cincinnati Review, Winter
DEBRA MONROE
Trouble in Mind, The Rumpus, September 11
ANDER MONSON
Remainder, Territory, August 5
DAVID MONTGOMERY
The Living and the Dead, The Washington Post Magazine, December 18
DAN MUSGRAVE
Worry, The Missouri Review, vol. 39, no. 2
ALLISON GRACE MYERS
Perfume Poured Out, Image, no. 89
ANDI MYLES
Impressions from a Vacuum, Alligator Juniper, no. XX
MICHAEL NAGEL
Beached Whales, Apt, July
JOHN R. NELSON
Funny Bird Sex, The Antioch Review, Winter
KERRY NEVILLE
After Divorce: Flight Path, Huffington Post, September 20
JENNIFER NIESSLEIN
Before We Were Good White, Full Grown People, December 15
JAMES NOLAN
Stairway to Paradise, Boulevard, Spring
W. SCOTT OLSEN
Before the Breaking Wave: The Duluth North Pier Lighthouse, North Dakota Quarterly, Spring/Summer
CARYL PAGEL
Alphabet, Entropy, September 8
LARRY PALMER
Urshel: The Beautiful Lost Sheep, Blackbird, Spring
FRANCES PARK
“You Two Are So Beautiful Together,” The Massachusetts Review, Summer
BRICE PARTICELLI
Take Me to the (Bronx?) River, The Big Roundtable, June
ELENA PASSARELLO
Twinkle, Twinkle, Vogel Staar, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Summer
COREY PEIN
Everybody Freeze! The Baffler, no. 30
EMILIA PHILLIPS
Excisions, Story Quarterly, no. 49
JOHN PICARD
The Accordion Polka, Moon City Review
SAM PICKERING
Habituated Eye, The Sewanee Review, Summer
MELISSA HOLBROOK PIERSON
Gimme Shelter, Lumina, no. XV
SALLY POTTER
Naked Cinema, A Public Space, no. 24
SHELLEY PUHAK
Detained: A Genealogy of Whores and Wolves, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, no. 54
LIA PURPURA
All the Fierce Tethers, The New England Review, vol. 37, no. 3
JILL SISSON QUINN
Begetting, Kenyon Review, September/October
ADRIANA E. RAMÍREZ
On Black Bodies, Metaphor, and Mourning, Literary Hub, August 30
MICHAEL RAMOS
A Long but Incomplete List of Some of the Things You Can’t (Don’t) Talk About, Fourth Genre, Fall
ADRIENNE RAPHEL
A Is for A, The Iowa Review, vol. 46, no. 3
WENDY RAWLINGS
Portrait of a Family, Crooked & Straight, Colorado Review, Summer
SUE REPKO
The Gun Show, The Southeast Review, vol. 34, no. 2
JIM RINGLEY
On the Smell of Certain Houses, The Threepenny Review, Fall
WALTER M. ROBINSON
This Will Sting and Burn, The Sun, January
JAMES SILAS ROGERS
Digging for Nothing, Ruminate, Spring
KELSEY RONAN
Blood and Water, Michigan Quarterly Review, Spring
DANIEL ASA ROSE
Separated at Birth, Harper’s Magazine, December
KENNETH R. ROSEN
Notes from My Suicide, The Big Roundtable, March 10
NATANIA ROSENFELD
The Autonomous Land of Prapruninma, Michigan Quarterly Review, Fall
MARY ROSS-DOLEN
Diphtheria, North Dakota Quarterly, Winter
MAURICE CARLOS RUFFIN
Fine Dining, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Fall
SHARMAN APT RUSSELL
People Who Live Inside Us, The Threepenny Review, Winter
SCOTT RUSSELL SANDERS
They’re Neighbors of Mine, Notre Dame Magazine, Winter
MARIN SARDY
Break My Body, Guernica, August 8
RICHARD SCHMITT
Not Knowing: The Rock & Roll of Drinking, Alaska Quarterly Review, Spring/Summer
BRANDON R. SCHRAND
Through the Glass Clearly, The Missouri Review, vol. 39, no. 4
MIMI SCHWARTZ
On Stage and Off, Prairie Schooner, Fall
SOPHFRONIA SCOTT
Why I Didn’t Go to the Firehouse, The Timberline Review, Summer/Fall
JO SCOTT-COE
Listening to Kathy, Catapult, March 30
WILLIAM HENRY SEARLE
The Hollow of Shell Bay, Bellevue Literary Review, Spring
DAVID SEDARIS
The Perfect Fit, The New Yorker, March 28
FREDERIC WILL
Eighteen Polarities from Within the Self, The Yale Review, January
PETER SELGIN
Noise, Bellevue Literary Review, Fall
AURVI SHARMA
Apricots, Gulf Coast, vol. 28, no. 1
MICHAEL SHEEHAN
On the Undiscovered Origins of Everything in Waxahachie, Texas, Agni, no. 84
FLOYD SKLOOT
He Had a Falcon, Boulevard, vol. 32, no. 1
LAUREN SLATER
It’s Over?, Elle, May
ANDREW SLOUGH
Avoiding Hemingway in Ketchum, Idaho, Catamaran, Winter
PATRICIA SMITH
My Bricks Be Foul, Prairie Schooner, Winter
CARRIE SNYDER
Why Give Yourself Away?, Brick, no. 96
JIM SOLLISCH
The Foreskin and the Hindsight, The Washington Post Magazine, January 10
DOROTHY SPEARS
Labor Day Weekend, Epiphany, Fall/Winter
KATHERINE E. STANDEFER
Wilderness, CutBank, no. 84
ELEANOR STANFORD
Grammar for an Unwritten Language (Cape Verde, West Africa), Kenyon Review, March/April
DAVID STEVENSON
A Late and Uninvited Correspondent Responds to Maggie Nelson’s Bluets, Alpinist, Winter
LAURIE STONE
Montreal, Ascent, August 9
ROBERT STOTHART
Magpies, The New England Review, vol. 37, no. 4
EMILY STRASSER
Exposure, Colorado Review, Summer
ABE STREEP
The Devil Is Loose, The California Sunday Magazine, August 7
SHEILA GRACE STUEWE
Star Struck (1982), Hunger Mountain, no. 20
ANDREW SULLIVAN
I Used to Be a Human Being, New York, September 19/October 2
JOHN JEREMIAH SULLIVAN
Baby Boy Born Birthplace Blues, Oxford American, Winter
BARRETT SWANSON
Calling Audibles, Mississippi Review, vol. 43, no. 3
JESSIE SZALAY
Sloughing Off, Gulf Coast, vol. 28, no. 2
JILL TALBOT
An Eye on the Door, The Normal School, Spring
ASHLEY P. TAYLOR
Af
ter the Essay, Entropy, October 26
KAITLYN TEER
Ossification, Fourth Genre, Spring
KERRY TEMPLE
What’s Best for Them, Notre Dame Magazine, Autumn
SALLIE TISDALE
Gaijin, Conjunctions, no. 66
TOMMY TOMLINSON
Our Old Dog, Charlotte, February
SAMANTHA TUCKER
Fountain Girls, Ecotone, Fall/Winter
SARAH VALLANCE
Heart Attack, Post Road, no. 31
JESSE MACEO VEGA-FREY
Pigs, Boston Review, January/February
SARAH VIREN
Advise Me, The Iowa Review, vol. 46, no. 1
SCOTT VOGEL
Gross Anatomy, Houstonia, December
ALIA VOLZ
Chasing Arrows, The New England Review, vol. 37, no. 1
JULIE MARIE WADE
Hourglass (III), Southern Humanities Review, vol. 50, nos. 1 & 2
JERALD WALKER
Thieves, River Teeth, Spring
NICOLE WALKER
Revolution, Barrelhouse, no. 15
YUNGHSIN WANG
Body, Esprit, Fall
KEEMA WATERFIELD
You Will Find Me in the Starred Sky, Brevity, May
SARAH M. WELLS
The Body Is Not a Coffin, Under the Gum Tree, April
ROSE WHITMORE
Witness, Colorado Review, Fall/Winter
JOEL WHITNEY
Fifty Years of Disquietude, The Baffler, no. 33
ESTHER K. WILLISON
Askew, Bellevue Literary Review, Spring
GARRY WILLS
My Koran Problem, The New York Review of Books, March 24
HEATHER GEMMEN WILSON
Unpinned, River Teeth, Spring
STEVEN WINEMAN
Erving and Alice and Sky and Elisabeth, The Cincinnati Review, Winter
DAVID WOJAHN
On Hearing That My Poems Were Being Studied in a Distant Place, Blackbird, Spring
BRENNA WOMER
Wusthof Silverpoint II 10-Piece Set, Grist, no. 9
AMY YEE
Delhi’s Current Flows On, Electric Literature, October 7
YIN Q
The Home of Desperate Magic, Apogee, no. 8
ALISSA YORK
In Memoriam Pompeius Maximus, Brick, no. 96
JESS ZIMMERMAN
A Life in Google Maps, Catapult, September 12
Notable Special Issues of 2016
The Antioch Review, “Sex,” ed. Robert S. Fogarty, Winter
The Baffler, “The Virtue Cartel,” ed. Chris Lehmann, no. 33
Bellevue Literary Review, “Reconstructions: The Art of Memory,” ed. Danielle Ofri, Fall
The Bennington Review, “Misbegotten Youth,” ed. Michael Dumanis, Fall/Winter
Chautauqua, “Americana,” eds. Jill Gerard and Philip Gerard, no. 13
Conjunctions, “Affinity: The Friendship Issue,” ed. Bradford Morrow, no. 66
Creative Nonfiction, “Marriage,” ed. Lee Gutkind, Spring
Daedalus, “What’s New About the Old,” guest ed. Matthew S. Santirocco, Spring
Ecotone, “The Country & City Issue,” ed. David Gessner, Fall/Winter