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40 Best Essays of All Time (Including Links & Writing Tips)

I wanted to improve my writing skills. I thought that reading the forty best essays of all time would bring me closer to my goal.

I had little money (buying forty collections of essays was out of the question) so I’ve found them online instead. I’ve hacked through piles of them, and finally, I’ve found the great ones. Now I want to share the whole list with you (with the addition of my notes about writing). Each item on the list has a direct link to the essay, so please click away and indulge yourself. Also, next to each essay, there’s an image of the book that contains the original work.

About this essay list:

Reading essays is like indulging in candy; once you start, it’s hard to stop. I sought out essays that were not only well-crafted but also impactful. These pieces genuinely shifted my perspective. Whether you’re diving in for enjoyment or to hone your writing, these essays promise to leave an imprint. It’s fascinating how an essay can resonate with you, and even if details fade, its essence remains. I haven’t ranked them in any way; they’re all stellar. Skim through, explore the summaries, and pick up some writing tips along the way. For more essay gems, consider “Best American Essays” by Joyce Carol Oates or “101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think” curated by Brianna Wiest.

40 Best Essays of All Time (With Links And Writing Tips)

1. david sedaris – laugh, kookaburra.

A great family drama takes place against the backdrop of the Australian wilderness. And the Kookaburra laughs… This is one of the top essays of the lot. It’s a great mixture of family reminiscences, travel writing, and advice on what’s most important in life. You’ll also learn an awful lot about the curious culture of the Aussies.

Writing tips from the essay:

• Use analogies (you can make it funny or dramatic to achieve a better effect): “Don’t be afraid,” the waiter said, and he talked to the kookaburra in a soothing, respectful voice, the way you might to a child with a switchblade in his hand”.
• You can touch a few cognate stories in one piece of writing . Reveal the layers gradually. Intertwine them and arrange for a grand finale where everything is finally clear.
• Be on the side of the reader. Become their friend and tell the story naturally, like around the dinner table.
• Use short, punchy sentences. Tell only as much as is required to make your point vivid.
• Conjure sentences that create actual feelings: “I had on a sweater and a jacket, but they weren’t quite enough, and I shivered as we walked toward the body, and saw that it was a . . . what, exactly?”
• You may ask a few tough questions in a row to provoke interest and let the reader think.

2. Charles D’Ambrosio – Documents

Do you think your life punches you in the face all too often? After reading this essay, you will change your mind. Reading about loss and hardships often makes us sad at first, but then enables us to feel grateful for our lives . D’Ambrosio shares his documents (poems, letters) that had a major impact on his life, and brilliantly shows how not to let go of the past.

• The most powerful stories are about your family and the childhood moments that shaped your life.
• You don’t need to build up tension and pussyfoot around the crux of the matter. Instead, surprise the reader by telling it like it is: “The poem was an allegory about his desire to leave our family.” Or: “My father had three sons. I’m the eldest; Danny, the youngest, killed himself sixteen years ago”.
• You can use real documents and quotes from your family and friends. It makes it so much more personal and relatable.
• Don’t cringe before the long sentence if you know it’s a strong one.
• At the end of the essay, you may come back to the first theme to close the circuit.
• Using slightly poetic language is acceptable, as long as it improves the story.

3. E. B. White – Once more to the lake

What does it mean to be a father? Can you see your younger self, reflected in your child? This beautiful essay tells the story of the author, his son, and their traditional stay at a placid lake hidden within the forests of Maine. This place of nature is filled with sunshine and childhood memories. It also provides for one of the greatest meditations on nature and the passing of time.

• Use sophisticated language, but not at the expense of readability.
• Use vivid language to trigger the mirror neurons in the reader’s brain: “I took along my son, who had never had any fresh water up his nose and who had seen lily pads only from train windows”.
• It’s important to mention universal feelings that are rarely talked about (it helps to create a bond between two minds): “You remember one thing, and that suddenly reminds you of another thing. I guess I remembered clearest of all the early mornings when the lake was cool and motionless”.
• Animate the inanimate: “this constant and trustworthy body of water”.
• Mentioning tales of yore is a good way to add some mystery and timelessness to your piece.
• Using double, or even triple “and” in one sentence is fine. It can make the sentence sing.

4. Zadie Smith – Fail Better

Aspiring writers feel tremendous pressure to perform. The daily quota of words often turns out to be nothing more than gibberish. What then? Also, should the writer please the reader or should she be fully independent? What does it mean to be a writer, anyway? This essay is an attempt to answer these questions, but its contents are not only meant for scribblers. Within it, you’ll find some great notes about literary criticism, how we treat art , and the responsibility of the reader.

• A perfect novel ? There’s no such thing.
• The novel always reflects the inner world of the writer. That’s why we’re fascinated with writers.
• Writing is not simply about craftsmanship, but about taking your reader to the unknown lands. In the words of Christopher Hitchens: “Your ideal authors ought to pull you from the foundering of your previous existence, not smilingly guide you into a friendly and peaceable harbor.”
• Style comes from your unique personality and the perception of the world. It takes time to develop it.
• Never try to tell it all. “All” can never be put into language. Take a part of it and tell it the best you can.
• Avoid being cliché. Try to infuse new life into your writing .
• Writing is about your way of being. It’s your game. Paradoxically, if you try to please everyone, your writing will become less appealing. You’ll lose the interest of the readers. This rule doesn’t apply in the business world where you have to write for a specific person (a target audience).
• As a reader, you have responsibilities too. According to the critics, every thirty years, there’s just a handful of great novels. Maybe it’s true. But there’s also an element of personal connection between the reader and the writer. That’s why for one person a novel is a marvel, while for the other, nothing special at all. That’s why you have to search and find the author who will touch you.

5. Virginia Woolf – Death of the Moth

Amid an ordinary day, sitting in a room of her own, Virginia Woolf tells about the epic struggle for survival and the evanescence of life. This short essay is truly powerful. In the beginning, the atmosphere is happy. Life is in full force. And then, suddenly, it fades away. This sense of melancholy would mark the last years of Woolf’s life.

• The melody of language… A good sentence is like music: “Moths that fly by day are not properly to be called moths; they do not excite that pleasant sense of dark autumn nights and ivy-blossom which the commonest yellow- underwing asleep in the shadow of the curtain never fails to rouse in us”.
• You can show the grandest in the mundane (for example, the moth at your window and the drama of life and death).
• Using simple comparisons makes the style more lucid: “Being intent on other matters I watched these futile attempts for a time without thinking, unconsciously waiting for him to resume his flight, as one waits for a machine, that has stopped momentarily, to start again without considering the reason of its failure”.

6. Meghan Daum – My Misspent Youth

Many of us, at some point or another, dream about living in New York. Meghan Daum’s take on the subject differs slightly from what you might expect. There’s no glamour, no Broadway shows, and no fancy restaurants. Instead, there’s the sullen reality of living in one of the most expensive cities in the world. You’ll get all the juicy details about credit cards, overdue payments, and scrambling for survival. It’s a word of warning. But it’s also a great story about shattered fantasies of living in a big city. Word on the street is: “You ain’t promised mañana in the rotten manzana.”

• You can paint a picture of your former self. What did that person believe in? What kind of world did he or she live in?
• “The day that turned your life around” is a good theme you may use in a story. Memories of a special day are filled with emotions. Strong emotions often breed strong writing.
• Use cultural references and relevant slang to create a context for your story.
• You can tell all the details of the story, even if in some people’s eyes you’ll look like the dumbest motherfucker that ever lived. It adds to the originality.
• Say it in a new way: “In this mindset, the dollars spent, like the mechanics of a machine no one bothers to understand, become an abstraction, an intangible avenue toward self-expression, a mere vehicle of style”.
• You can mix your personal story with the zeitgeist or the ethos of the time.

7. Roger Ebert – Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Probably the greatest film critic of all time, Roger Ebert, tells us not to rage against the dying of the light. This essay is full of courage, erudition, and humanism. From it, we learn about what it means to be dying (Hitchens’ “Mortality” is another great work on that theme). But there’s so much more. It’s a great celebration of life too. It’s about not giving up, and sticking to your principles until the very end. It brings to mind the famous scene from Dead Poets Society where John Keating (Robin Williams) tells his students: “Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary”.

• Start with a powerful sentence: “I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear.”
• Use quotes to prove your point -”‘Ask someone how they feel about death’, he said, ‘and they’ll tell you everyone’s gonna die’. Ask them, ‘In the next 30 seconds?’ No, no, no, that’s not gonna happen”.
• Admit the basic truths about reality in a childlike way (especially after pondering quantum physics) – “I believe my wristwatch exists, and even when I am unconscious, it is ticking all the same. You have to start somewhere”.
• Let other thinkers prove your point. Use quotes and ideas from your favorite authors and friends.

8. George Orwell – Shooting an Elephant

Even after one reading, you’ll remember this one for years. The story, set in British Burma, is about shooting an elephant (it’s not for the squeamish). It’s also the most powerful denunciation of colonialism ever put into writing. Orwell, apparently a free representative of British rule, feels to be nothing more than a puppet succumbing to the whim of the mob.

• The first sentence is the most important one: “In Moulmein, in Lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people — the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me”.
• You can use just the first paragraph to set the stage for the whole piece of prose.
• Use beautiful language that stirs the imagination: “I remember that it was a cloudy, stuffy morning at the beginning of the rains.” Or: “I watched him beating his bunch of grass against his knees, with that preoccupied grandmotherly air that elephants have.”
• If you’ve ever been to war, you will have a story to tell: “(Never tell me, by the way, that the dead look peaceful. Most of the corpses I have seen looked devilish.)”
• Use simple words, and admit the sad truth only you can perceive: “They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in my hands I was momentarily worth watching”.
• Share words of wisdom to add texture to the writing: “I perceived at this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his freedom that he destroys.”
• I highly recommend reading everything written by Orwell, especially if you’re looking for the best essay collections on Amazon or Goodreads.

9. George Orwell – A Hanging

It’s just another day in Burma – time to hang a man. Without much ado, Orwell recounts the grim reality of taking another person’s life. A man is taken from his cage and in a few minutes, he’s going to be hanged. The most horrible thing is the normality of it. It’s a powerful story about human nature. Also, there’s an extraordinary incident with the dog, but I won’t get ahead of myself.

• Create brilliant, yet short descriptions of characters: “He was a Hindu, a puny wisp of a man, with a shaven head and vague liquid eyes. He had a thick, sprouting mustache, absurdly too big for his body, rather like the mustache of a comic man on the films”.
• Understand and share the felt presence of a unique experience: “It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man”.
• Make your readers hear the sound that will stay with them forever: “And then when the noose was fixed, the prisoner began crying out on his god. It was a high, reiterated cry of “Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!”
• Make the ending original by refusing the tendency to seek closure or summing it up.

10. Christopher Hitchens – Assassins of The Mind

In one of the greatest essays written in defense of free speech, Christopher Hitchens shares many examples of how modern media kneel to the explicit threats of violence posed by Islamic extremists. He recounts the story of his friend, Salman Rushdie, author of Satanic Verses who, for many years, had to watch over his shoulder because of the fatwa of Ayatollah Khomeini. With his usual wit, Hitchens shares various examples of people who died because of their opinions and of editors who refuse to publish anything related to Islam because of fear (and it was written long before the Charlie Hebdo massacre). After reading the essay, you realize that freedom of expression is one of the most precious things we have and that we have to fight for it. I highly recommend all essay collections penned by Hitchens, especially the ones written for Vanity Fair.

• Assume that the readers will know the cultural references. When they do, their self-esteem goes up – they are a part of an insider group.
• When proving your point, give a variety of real-life examples from eclectic sources. Leave no room for ambiguity or vagueness. Research and overall knowledge are essential here.
• Use italics to emphasize a specific word or phrase (here I use the underlining): “We live now in a climate where every publisher and editor and politician has to weigh in advance the possibility of violent Muslim reprisal. In consequence, several things have not happened.”
• Think about how to make it sound more original: “So there is now a hidden partner in our cultural and academic and publishing and the broadcasting world: a shadowy figure that has, uninvited, drawn up a chair to the table.”

11. Christopher Hitchens – The New Commandments

It’s high time to shatter the tablets and amend the biblical rules of conduct. Watch, as Christopher Hitchens slays one commandment after the other on moral, as well as historical grounds. For example, did you know that there are many versions of the divine law dictated by God to Moses which you can find in the Bible? Aren’t we thus empowered to write our version of a proper moral code? If you approach it with an open mind, this essay may change the way you think about the Bible and religion.

• Take the iconoclastic approach. Have a party on the hallowed soil.
• Use humor to undermine orthodox ideas (it seems to be the best way to deal with an established authority).
• Use sarcasm and irony when appropriate (or not): “Nobody is opposed to a day of rest. The international Communist movement got its start by proclaiming a strike for an eight-hour day on May 1, 1886, against Christian employers who used child labor seven days a week”.
• Defeat God on legal grounds: “Wise lawmakers know that it is a mistake to promulgate legislation that is impossible to obey”.
• Be ruthless in the logic of your argument. Provide evidence.

12. Phillip Lopate – Against Joie de Vivre

While reading this fantastic essay, this quote from Slavoj Žižek kept coming back to me: “I think that the only life of deep satisfaction is a life of eternal struggle, especially struggle with oneself. If you want to remain happy, just remain stupid. Authentic masters are never happy; happiness is a category of slaves”. I can bear the onus of happiness or joie de vivre for some time. But this force enables me to get free and wallow in the sweet feelings of melancholy and nostalgia. By reading this work of Lopate, you’ll enter into the world of an intelligent man who finds most social rituals a drag. It’s worth exploring.

• Go against the grain. Be flamboyant and controversial (if you can handle it).
• Treat the paragraph like a group of thoughts on one theme. Next paragraph, next theme.
• Use references to other artists to set the context and enrich the prose: “These sunny little canvases with their talented innocence, the third-generation spirit of Montmartre, bore testimony to a love of life so unbending as to leave an impression of rigid narrow-mindedness as extreme as any Savonarola. Their rejection of sorrow was total”.
• Capture the emotions in life that are universal, yet remain unspoken.
• Don’t be afraid to share your intimate experiences.

13. Philip Larkin – The Pleasure Principle

This piece comes from the Required Writing collection of personal essays. Larkin argues that reading in verse should be a source of intimate pleasure – not a medley of unintelligible thoughts that only the author can (or can’t?) decipher. It’s a sobering take on modern poetry and a great call to action for all those involved in it. Well worth a read.

• Write about complicated ideas (such as poetry) simply. You can change how people look at things if you express yourself enough.
• Go boldly. The reader wants a bold writer: “We seem to be producing a new kind of bad poetry, not the old kind that tries to move the reader and fails, but one that does not even try”.
• Play with words and sentence length. Create music: “It is time some of you playboys realized, says the judge, that reading a poem is hard work. Fourteen days in stir. Next case”.
• Persuade the reader to take action. Here, direct language is the most effective.

14. Sigmund Freud – Thoughts for the Times on War and Death

This essay reveals Freud’s disillusionment with the whole project of Western civilization. How the peaceful European countries could engage in a war that would eventually cost over 17 million lives? What stirs people to kill each other? Is it their nature, or are they puppets of imperial forces with agendas of their own? From the perspective of time, this work by Freud doesn’t seem to be fully accurate. Even so, it’s well worth your time.

• Commence with long words derived from Latin. Get grandiloquent, make your argument incontrovertible, and leave your audience discombobulated.
• Use unending sentences, so that the reader feels confused, yet impressed.
• Say it well: “In this way, he enjoyed the blue sea and the grey; the beauty of snow-covered mountains and green meadowlands; the magic of northern forests and the splendor of southern vegetation; the mood evoked by landscapes that recall great historical events, and the silence of untouched nature”.
• Human nature is a subject that never gets dry.

15. Zadie Smith – Some Notes on Attunement

“You are privy to a great becoming, but you recognize nothing” – Francis Dolarhyde. This one is about the elusiveness of change occurring within you. For Zadie, it was hard to attune to the vibes of Joni Mitchell – especially her Blue album. But eventually, she grew up to appreciate her genius, and all the other things changed as well. This top essay is all about the relationship between humans, and art. We shouldn’t like art because we’re supposed to. We should like it because it has an instantaneous, emotional effect on us. Although, according to Stansfield (Gary Oldman) in Léon, liking Beethoven is rather mandatory.

• Build an expectation of what’s coming: “The first time I heard her I didn’t hear her at all”.
• Don’t be afraid of repetition if it feels good.
• Psychedelic drugs let you appreciate things you never appreciated.
• Intertwine a personal journey with philosophical musings.
• Show rather than tell: “My friends pitied their eyes. The same look the faithful give you as you hand them back their “literature” and close the door in their faces”.
• Let the poets speak for you: “That time is past, / And all its aching joys are now no
• more, / And all its dizzy raptures”.
• By voicing your anxieties, you can heal the anxieties of the reader. In that way, you say: “I’m just like you. I’m your friend in this struggle”.
• Admit your flaws to make your persona more relatable.

16. Annie Dillard – Total Eclipse

My imagination was always stirred by the scene of the solar eclipse in Pharaoh, by Boleslaw Prus. I wondered about the shock of the disoriented crowd when they saw how their ruler could switch off the light. Getting immersed in this essay by Annie Dillard has a similar effect. It produces amazement and some kind of primeval fear. It’s not only the environment that changes; it’s your mind and the perception of the world. After the eclipse, nothing is going to be the same again.

• Yet again, the power of the first sentence draws you in: “It had been like dying, that sliding down the mountain pass”.
• Don’t miss the extraordinary scene. Then describe it: “Up in the sky, like a crater from some distant cataclysm, was a hollow ring”.
• Use colloquial language. Write as you talk. Short sentences often win.
• Contrast the numinous with the mundane to enthrall the reader.

17. Édouard Levé – When I Look at a Strawberry, I Think of a Tongue

This suicidally beautiful essay will teach you a lot about the appreciation of life and the struggle with mental illness. It’s a collection of personal, apparently unrelated thoughts that show us the rich interior of the author. You look at the real-time thoughts of another person, and then recognize the same patterns within yourself… It sounds like a confession of a person who’s about to take their life, and it’s striking in its originality.

• Use the stream-of-consciousness technique and put random thoughts on paper. Then, polish them: “I have attempted suicide once, I’ve been tempted four times to attempt it”.
• Place the treasure deep within the story: “When I look at a strawberry, I think of a tongue, when I lick one, of a kiss”.
• Don’t worry about what people might think. The more you expose, the more powerful the writing. Readers also take part in the great drama. They experience universal emotions that mostly stay inside.  You can translate them into writing.

18. Gloria E. Anzaldúa – How to Tame a Wild Tongue

Anzaldúa, who was born in south Texas, had to struggle to find her true identity. She was American, but her culture was grounded in Mexico. In this way, she and her people were not fully respected in either of the countries. This essay is an account of her journey of becoming the ambassador of the Chicano (Mexican-American) culture. It’s full of anecdotes, interesting references, and different shades of Spanish. It’s a window into a new cultural dimension that you’ve never experienced before.

• If your mother tongue is not English, but you write in English, use some of your unique homeland vocabulary.
• You come from a rich cultural heritage. You can share it with people who never heard about it, and are not even looking for it, but it is of immense value to them when they discover it.
• Never forget about your identity. It is precious. It is a part of who you are. Even if you migrate, try to preserve it. Use it to your best advantage and become the voice of other people in the same situation.
• Tell them what’s really on your mind: “So if you want to hurt me, talk badly about my language. Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity – I am my language”.

19. Kurt Vonnegut – Dispatch From A Man Without a Country

In terms of style, this essay is flawless. It’s simple, conversational, humorous, and yet, full of wisdom. And when Vonnegut becomes a teacher and draws an axis of “beginning – end”, and, “good fortune – bad fortune” to explain literature, it becomes outright hilarious. It’s hard to find an author with such a down-to-earth approach. He doesn’t need to get intellectual to prove a point. And the point could be summed up by the quote from Great Expectations – “On the Rampage, Pip, and off the Rampage, Pip – such is Life!”

• Start with a curious question: “Do you know what a twerp is?”
• Surprise your readers with uncanny analogies: “I am from a family of artists. Here I am, making a living in the arts. It has not been a rebellion. It’s as though I had taken over the family Esso station.”
• Use your natural language without too many special effects. In time, the style will crystalize.
• An amusing lesson in writing from Mr. Vonnegut: “Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college”.
• You can put actual images or vignettes between the paragraphs to illustrate something.

20. Mary Ruefle – On Fear

Most psychologists and gurus agree that fear is the greatest enemy of success or any creative activity. It’s programmed into our minds to keep us away from imaginary harm. Mary Ruefle takes on this basic human emotion with flair. She explores fear from so many angles (especially in the world of poetry-writing) that at the end of this personal essay, you will look at it, dissect it, untangle it, and hopefully be able to say “f**k you” the next time your brain is trying to stop you.

• Research your subject thoroughly. Ask people, have interviews, get expert opinions, and gather as much information as possible. Then scavenge through the fields of data, and pull out the golden bits that will let your prose shine.
• Use powerful quotes to add color to your story: “The poet who embarks on the creation of the poem (as I know by experience), begins with the aimless sensation of a hunter about to embark on a night hunt through the remotest of forests. Unaccountable dread stirs in his heart”. – Lorca.
• Writing advice from the essay: “One of the fears a young writer has is not being able to write as well as he or she wants to, the fear of not being able to sound like X or Y, a favorite author. But out of fear, hopefully, is born a young writer’s voice”.

21. Susan Sontag – Against Interpretation

In this highly intellectual essay, Sontag fights for art and its interpretation. It’s a great lesson, especially for critics and interpreters who endlessly chew on works that simply defy interpretation. Why don’t we just leave the art alone? I always hated it when at school they asked me: “What did the author have in mind when he did X or Y?” Iēsous Pantocrator! Hell if I know! I will judge it through my subjective experience!

• Leave the art alone: “Today is such a time, when the project of interpretation is reactionary, stifling. Like the fumes of the automobile and heavy industry which befoul the urban atmosphere, the effusion of interpretations of art today poisons our sensibilities”.
• When you have something really important to say, style matters less.
• There’s no use in creating a second meaning or inviting interpretation of our art. Just leave it be and let it speak for itself.

22. Nora Ephron – A Few Words About Breasts

This is a heartwarming, coming-of-age story about a young girl who waits in vain for her breasts to grow. It’s simply a humorous and pleasurable read. The size of breasts is a big deal for women. If you’re a man, you may peek into the mind of a woman and learn many interesting things. If you’re a woman, maybe you’ll be able to relate and at last, be at peace with your bosom.

• Touch an interesting subject and establish a strong connection with the readers (in that case, women with small breasts). Let your personality shine through the written piece. If you are lighthearted, show it.
• Use hyphens to create an impression of real talk: “My house was full of apples and peaches and milk and homemade chocolate chip cookies – which were nice, and good for you, but-not-right-before-dinner-or-you’ll-spoil-your-appetite.”
• Use present tense when you tell a story to add more life to it.
• Share the pronounced, memorable traits of characters: “A previous girlfriend named Solange, who was famous throughout Beverly Hills High School for having no pigment in her right eyebrow, had knitted them for him (angora dice)”.

23. Carl Sagan – Does Truth Matter – Science, Pseudoscience, and Civilization

Carl Sagan was one of the greatest proponents of skepticism, and an author of numerous books, including one of my all-time favorites – The Demon-Haunted World . He was also a renowned physicist and the host of the fantastic Cosmos: A Personal Voyage series, which inspired a whole generation to uncover the mysteries of the cosmos. He was also a dedicated weed smoker – clearly ahead of his time. The essay that you’re about to read is a crystallization of his views about true science, and why you should check the evidence before believing in UFOs or similar sorts of crap.

• Tell people the brutal truth they need to hear. Be the one who spells it out for them.
• Give a multitude of examples to prove your point. Giving hard facts helps to establish trust with the readers and show the veracity of your arguments.
• Recommend a good book that will change your reader’s minds – How We Know What Isn’t So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life

24. Paul Graham – How To Do What You Love

How To Do What You Love should be read by every college student and young adult. The Internet is flooded with a large number of articles and videos that are supposed to tell you what to do with your life. Most of them are worthless, but this one is different. It’s sincere, and there’s no hidden agenda behind it. There’s so much we take for granted – what we study, where we work, what we do in our free time… Surely we have another two hundred years to figure it out, right? Life’s too short to be so naïve. Please, read the essay and let it help you gain fulfillment from your work.

• Ask simple, yet thought-provoking questions (especially at the beginning of the paragraph) to engage the reader: “How much are you supposed to like what you do?”
• Let the readers question their basic assumptions: “Prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you’d like to like”.
• If you’re writing for a younger audience, you can act as a mentor. It’s beneficial for younger people to read a few words of advice from a person with experience.

25. John Jeremiah Sullivan – Mister Lytle

A young, aspiring writer is about to become a nurse of a fading writer – Mister Lytle (Andrew Nelson Lytle), and there will be trouble. This essay by Sullivan is probably my favorite one from the whole list. The amount of beautiful sentences it contains is just overwhelming. But that’s just a part of its charm. It also takes you to the Old South which has an incredible atmosphere. It’s grim and tawny but you want to stay there for a while.

• Short, distinct sentences are often the most powerful ones: “He had a deathbed, in other words. He didn’t go suddenly”.
• Stay consistent with the mood of the story. When reading Mister Lytle you are immersed in that southern, forsaken, gloomy world, and it’s a pleasure.
• The spectacular language that captures it all: “His French was superb, but his accent in English was best—that extinct mid-Southern, land-grant pioneer speech, with its tinges of the abandoned Celtic urban Northeast (“boned” for burned) and its raw gentility”.
• This essay is just too good. You have to read it.

26. Joan Didion – On Self Respect

Normally, with that title, you would expect some straightforward advice about how to improve your character and get on with your goddamn life – but not from Joan Didion. From the very beginning, you can feel the depth of her thinking, and the unmistakable style of a true woman who’s been hurt. You can learn more from this essay than from whole books about self-improvement . It reminds me of the scene from True Detective, where Frank Semyon tells Ray Velcoro to “own it” after he realizes he killed the wrong man all these years ago. I guess we all have to “own it”, recognize our mistakes, and move forward sometimes.

• Share your moral advice: “Character — the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life — is the source from which self-respect springs”.
• It’s worth exploring the subject further from a different angle. It doesn’t matter how many people have already written on self-respect or self-reliance – you can still write passionately about it.
• Whatever happens, you must take responsibility for it. Brave the storms of discontent.

27. Susan Sontag – Notes on Camp

I’ve never read anything so thorough and lucid about an artistic current. After reading this essay, you will know what camp is. But not only that – you will learn about so many artists you’ve never heard of. You will follow their traces and go to places where you’ve never been before. You will vastly increase your appreciation of art. It’s interesting how something written as a list could be so amazing. All the listicles we usually see on the web simply cannot compare with it.

• Talking about artistic sensibilities is a tough job. When you read the essay, you will see how much research, thought and raw intellect came into it. But that’s one of the reasons why people still read it today, even though it was written in 1964.
• You can choose an unorthodox way of expression in the medium for which you produce. For example, Notes on Camp is a listicle – one of the most popular content formats on the web. But in the olden days, it was uncommon to see it in print form.
• Just think about what is camp: “And third among the great creative sensibilities is Camp: the sensibility of failed seriousness, of the theatricalization of experience. Camp refuses both the harmonies of traditional seriousness and the risks of fully identifying with extreme states of feeling”.

28. Ralph Waldo Emerson – Self-Reliance

That’s the oldest one from the lot. Written in 1841, it still inspires generations of people. It will let you understand what it means to be self-made. It contains some of the most memorable quotes of all time. I don’t know why, but this one especially touched me: “Every true man is a cause, a country, and an age; requires infinite spaces and numbers and time fully to accomplish his design, and posterity seems to follow his steps as a train of clients”. Now isn’t it purely individualistic, American thought? Emerson told me (and he will tell you) to do something amazing with my life. The language it contains is a bit archaic, but that just adds to the weight of the argument. You can consider it to be a meeting with a great philosopher who shaped the ethos of the modern United States.

• You can start with a powerful poem that will set the stage for your work.
• Be free in your creative flow. Do not wait for the approval of others: “What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness”.
• Use rhetorical questions to strengthen your argument: “I hear a preacher announce for his text and topic the expediency of one of the institutions of his church. Do I not know beforehand that not possibly say a new and spontaneous word?”

29. David Foster Wallace – Consider The Lobster

When you want simple field notes about a food festival, you needn’t send there the formidable David Foster Wallace. He sees right through the hypocrisy and cruelty behind killing hundreds of thousands of innocent lobsters – by boiling them alive. This essay uncovers some of the worst traits of modern American people. There are no apologies or hedging one’s bets. There’s just plain truth that stabs you in the eye like a lobster claw. After reading this essay, you may reconsider the whole animal-eating business.

• When it’s important, say it plainly and stagger the reader: “[Lobsters] survive right up until they’re boiled. Most of us have been in supermarkets or restaurants that feature tanks of live lobster, from which you can pick out your supper while it watches you point”.
• In your writing, put exact quotes of the people you’ve been interviewing (including slang and grammatical errors). It makes it more vivid, and interesting.
• You can use humor in serious situations to make your story grotesque.
• Use captions to expound on interesting points of your essay.

30. David Foster Wallace – The Nature of the Fun

The famous novelist and author of the most powerful commencement speech ever done is going to tell you about the joys and sorrows of writing a work of fiction. It’s like taking care of a mutant child that constantly oozes smelly liquids. But you love that child and you want others to love it too. It’s a very humorous account of what it means to be an author. If you ever plan to write a novel, you should read that one. And the story about the Chinese farmer is just priceless.

• Base your point on a chimerical analogy. Here, the writer’s unfinished work is a “hideously damaged infant”.
• Even in expository writing, you may share an interesting story to keep things lively.
• Share your true emotions (even when you think they won’t interest anyone). Often, that’s exactly what will interest the reader.
• Read the whole essay for marvelous advice on writing fiction.

31. Margaret Atwood – Attitude

This is not an essay per se, but I included it on the list for the sake of variety. It was delivered as a commencement speech at The University of Toronto, and it’s about keeping the right attitude. Soon after leaving university, most graduates have to forget about safety, parties, and travel and start a new life – one filled with a painful routine that will last until they drop. Atwood says that you don’t have to accept that. You can choose how you react to everything that happens to you (and you don’t have to stay in that dead-end job for the rest of your days).

• At times, we are all too eager to persuade, but the strongest persuasion is not forceful. It’s subtle. It speaks to the heart. It affects you gradually.
• You may be tempted to talk about a subject by first stating what it is not, rather than what it is. Try to avoid that.
• Simple advice for writers (and life in general): “When faced with the inevitable, you always have a choice. You may not be able to alter reality, but you can alter your attitude towards it”.

32. Jo Ann Beard – The Fourth State of Matter

Read that one as soon as possible. It’s one of the most masterful and impactful essays you’ll ever read. It’s like a good horror – a slow build-up, and then your jaw drops to the ground. To summarize the story would be to spoil it, so I recommend that you just dig in and devour this essay in one sitting. It’s a perfect example of “show, don’t tell” writing, where the actions of characters are enough to create the right effect. No need for flowery adjectives here.

• The best story you will tell is going to come from your personal experience.
• Use mysteries that will nag the reader. For example, at the beginning of the essay, we learn about the “vanished husband” but there’s no explanation. We have to keep reading to get the answer.
• Explain it in simple terms: “You’ve got your solid, your liquid, your gas, and then your plasma”. Why complicate?

33. Terence McKenna – Tryptamine Hallucinogens and Consciousness

To me, Terence McKenna was one of the most interesting thinkers of the twentieth century. His many lectures (now available on YouTube) attracted millions of people who suspect that consciousness holds secrets yet to be unveiled. McKenna consumed psychedelic drugs for most of his life and it shows (in a positive way). Many people consider him a looney, and a hippie, but he was so much more than that. He dared to go into the abyss of his psyche and come back to tell the tale. He also wrote many books (the most famous being Food Of The Gods ), built a huge botanical garden in Hawaii , lived with shamans, and was a connoisseur of all things enigmatic and obscure. Take a look at this essay, and learn more about the explorations of the subconscious mind.

• Become the original thinker, but remember that it may require extraordinary measures: “I call myself an explorer rather than a scientist because the area that I’m looking at contains insufficient data to support even the dream of being a science”.
• Learn new words every day to make your thoughts lucid.
• Come up with the most outlandish ideas to push the envelope of what’s possible. Don’t take things for granted or become intellectually lazy. Question everything.

34. Eudora Welty – The Little Store

By reading this little-known essay, you will be transported into the world of the old American South. It’s a remembrance of trips to the little store in a little town. It’s warm and straightforward, and when you read it, you feel like a child once more. All these beautiful memories live inside of us. They lay somewhere deep in our minds, hidden from sight. The work by Eudora Welty is an attempt to uncover some of them and let you get reacquainted with some smells and tastes of the past.

• When you’re from the South, flaunt it. It’s still good old English but sometimes it sounds so foreign. I can hear the Southern accent too: “There were almost tangible smells – licorice recently sucked in a child’s cheek, dill-pickle brine that had leaked through a paper sack in a fresh trail across the wooden floor, ammonia-loaded ice that had been hoisted from wet Croker sacks and slammed into the icebox with its sweet butter at the door, and perhaps the smell of still-untrapped mice”.
• Yet again, never forget your roots.
• Childhood stories can be the most powerful ones. You can write about how they shaped you.

35. John McPhee – The Search for Marvin Gardens

The Search for Marvin Gardens contains many layers of meaning. It’s a story about a Monopoly championship, but also, it’s the author’s search for the lost streets visible on the board of the famous board game. It also presents a historical perspective on the rise and fall of civilizations, and on Atlantic City, which once was a lively place, and then, slowly declined, the streets filled with dirt and broken windows.

• There’s nothing like irony: “A sign- ‘Slow, Children at Play’- has been bent backward by an automobile”.
• Telling the story in apparently unrelated fragments is sometimes better than telling the whole thing in a logical order.
• Creativity is everything. The best writing may come just from connecting two ideas and mixing them to achieve a great effect. Shush! The muse is whispering.

36. Maxine Hong Kingston – No Name Woman

A dead body at the bottom of the well makes for a beautiful literary device. The first line of Orhan Pamuk’s novel My Name Is Red delivers it perfectly: “I am nothing but a corpse now, a body at the bottom of a well”. There’s something creepy about the idea of the well. Just think about the “It puts the lotion in the basket” scene from The Silence of the Lambs. In the first paragraph of Kingston’s essay, we learn about a suicide committed by uncommon means of jumping into the well. But this time it’s a real story. Who was this woman? Why did she do it? Read the essay.

• Mysterious death always gets attention. The macabre details are like daiquiris on a hot day – you savor them – you don’t let them spill.
• One sentence can speak volumes: “But the rare urge west had fixed upon our family, and so my aunt crossed boundaries not delineated in space”.
• It’s interesting to write about cultural differences – especially if you have the relevant experience. Something normal for us is unthinkable for others. Show this different world.
• The subject of sex is never boring.

37. Joan Didion – On Keeping A Notebook

Slouching Towards Bethlehem is one of the most famous collections of essays of all time. In it, you will find a curious piece called On Keeping A Notebook. It’s not only a meditation about keeping a journal. It’s also Didion’s reconciliation with her past self. After reading it, you will seriously reconsider your life’s choices and look at your life from a wider perspective.

• When you write things down in your journal, be more specific – unless you want to write a deep essay about it years later.
• Use the beauty of the language to relate to the past: “I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be; one of them, a seventeen-year-old, presents little threat, although it would be of some interest to me to know again what it feels like to sit on a river levee drinking vodka-and-orange-juice and listening to Les Paul and Mary Ford and their echoes sing ‘How High the Moon’ on the car radio”.
• Drop some brand names if you want to feel posh.

38. Joan Didion – Goodbye To All That

This one touched me because I also lived in New York City for a while. I don’t know why, but stories about life in NYC are so often full of charm and this eerie-melancholy-jazz feeling. They are powerful. They go like this: “There was a hard blizzard in NYC. As the sound of sirens faded, Tony descended into the dark world of hustlers and pimps.” That’s pulp literature but in the context of NYC, it always sounds cool. Anyway, this essay is amazing in too many ways. You just have to read it.

• Talk about New York City. They will read it.
• Talk about the human experience: “It did occur to me to call the desk and ask that the air conditioner be turned off, I never called, because I did not know how much to tip whoever might come—was anyone ever so young?”
• Look back at your life and reexamine it. Draw lessons from it.

39. George Orwell – Reflections on Gandhi

George Orwell could see things as they were. No exaggeration, no romanticism – just facts. He recognized totalitarianism and communism for what they were and shared his worries through books like 1984 and Animal Farm . He took the same sober approach when dealing with saints and sages. Today, we regard Gandhi as one of the greatest political leaders of the twentieth century – and rightfully so. But did you know that when asked about the Jews during World War II, Gandhi said that they should commit collective suicide and that it: “would have aroused the world and the people of Germany to Hitler’s violence.” He also recommended utter pacifism in 1942, during the Japanese invasion, even though he knew it would cost millions of lives. But overall he was a good guy. Read the essay and broaden your perspective on the Bapu of the Indian Nation.

• Share a philosophical thought that stops the reader for a moment: “No doubt alcohol, tobacco, and so forth are things that a saint must avoid, but sainthood is also a thing that human beings must avoid”.
• Be straightforward in your writing – no mannerisms, no attempts to create ‘style’, and no invocations of the numinous – unless you feel the mystical vibe.

40. George Orwell – Politics and the English Language

Let Mr. Orwell give you some writing tips. Written in 1946, this essay is still one of the most helpful documents on writing in English. Orwell was probably the first person who exposed the deliberate vagueness of political language. He was very serious about it and I admire his efforts to slay all unclear sentences (including ones written by distinguished professors). But it’s good to make it humorous too from time to time. My favorite examples of that would be the immortal Soft Language sketch by George Carlin or the “Romans Go Home” scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Overall, it’s a great essay filled with examples from many written materials. It’s a must-read for any writer.

• Listen to the master: “This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose.” Do something about it.
• This essay is all about writing better, so go to the source if you want the goodies.

Other Essays You May Find Interesting

The list that I’ve prepared is by no means complete. The literary world is full of exciting essays and you’ll never know which one is going to change your life. I’ve found reading essays very rewarding because sometimes, a single one means more than reading a whole book. It’s almost like wandering around and peeking into the minds of the greatest writers and thinkers that ever lived. To make this list more comprehensive, below I included more essays you may find interesting.

Oliver Sacks – On Libraries

One of the greatest contributors to the knowledge about the human mind, Oliver Sacks meditates on the value of libraries and his love of books.

Noam Chomsky – The Responsibility of Intellectuals

Chomsky did probably more than anyone else to define the role of the intelligentsia in the modern world . There is a war of ideas over there – good and bad – intellectuals are going to be those who ought to be fighting for the former.

Sam Harris – The Riddle of The Gun

Sam Harris, now a famous philosopher and neuroscientist, takes on the problem of gun control in the United States. His thoughts are clear of prejudice. After reading this, you’ll appreciate the value of logical discourse overheated, irrational debate that more often than not has real implications on policy.

Tim Ferriss – Some Practical Thoughts on Suicide

This piece was written as a blog post , but it’s worth your time. The author of the NYT bestseller The 4-Hour Workweek shares an emotional story about how he almost killed himself, and what can you do to save yourself or your friends from suicide.

Edward Said – Reflections on Exile

The life of Edward Said was a truly fascinating one. Born in Jerusalem, he lived between Palestine and Egypt and finally settled down in the United States, where he completed his most famous work – Orientalism. In this essay, he shares his thoughts about what it means to be in exile.

Richard Feynman – It’s as Simple as One, Two, Three…

Richard Feynman is one of the most interesting minds of the twentieth century. He was a brilliant physicist, but also an undeniably great communicator of science, an artist, and a traveler. By reading this essay, you can observe his thought process when he tries to figure out what affects our perception of time. It’s a truly fascinating read.

Rabindranath Tagore – The Religion of The Forest

I like to think about Tagore as my spiritual Friend. His poems are just marvelous. They are like some of the Persian verses that praise love, nature, and the unity of all things. By reading this short essay, you will learn a lot about Indian philosophy and its relation to its Western counterpart.

Richard Dawkins – Letter To His 10-Year-Old Daughter

Every father should be able to articulate his philosophy of life to his children. With this letter that’s similar to what you find in the Paris Review essays , the famed atheist and defender of reason, Richard Dawkins, does exactly that. It’s beautifully written and stresses the importance of looking at evidence when we’re trying to make sense of the world.

Albert Camus – The Minotaur (or, The Stop In Oran)

Each person requires a period of solitude – a period when one’s able to gather thoughts and make sense of life. There are many places where you may attempt to find quietude. Albert Camus tells about his favorite one.

Koty Neelis – 21 Incredible Life Lessons From Anthony Bourdain

I included it as the last one because it’s not really an essay, but I just had to put it somewhere. In this listicle, you’ll find the 21 most original thoughts of the high-profile cook, writer, and TV host, Anthony Bourdain. Some of them are shocking, others are funny, but they’re all worth checking out.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca – On the Shortness of Life

It’s similar to the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam because it praises life. Seneca shares some of his stoic philosophy and tells you not to waste your time on stupidities. Drink! – for once dead you shall never return.

Bertrand Russell – In Praise of Idleness

This old essay is a must-read for modern humans. We are so preoccupied with our work, our phones, and all the media input we drown in our business. Bertrand Russell tells you to chill out a bit – maybe it will do you some good.

James Baldwin – Stranger in the Village

It’s an essay on the author’s experiences as an African-American in a Swiss village, exploring race, identity, and alienation while highlighting the complexities of racial dynamics and the quest for belonging.

Bonus – More writing tips from two great books

The mission to improve my writing skills took me further than just going through the essays. I’ve come across some great books on writing too. I highly recommend you read them in their entirety. They’re written beautifully and contain lots of useful knowledge. Below you’ll find random (but useful) notes that I took from The Sense of Style and On Writing.

The Sense of Style – By Steven Pinker

• Style manuals are full of inconsistencies. Following their advice might not be the best idea. They might make your prose boring.
• Grammarians from all eras condemn students for not knowing grammar. But it just evolves. It cannot be rigid.
• “Nothing worth learning can be taught” – Oscar Wilde. It’s hard to learn to write from a manual – you have to read, write, and analyze.
• Good writing makes you imagine things and feel them for yourself – use word pictures.
• Don’t fear using voluptuous words.
• Phonesthetics – or how the words sound.
• Use parallel language (consistency of tense).
• Good writing finishes strong.
• Write to someone. Never write for no one in mind. Try to show people your view of the world.
• Don’t tell everything you are going to say in summary (signposting) – be logical, but be conversational.
• Don’t be pompous.
• Don’t use quotation marks where they don’t “belong”. Be confident about your style.
• Don’t hedge your claims (research first, and then tell it like it is).
• Avoid clichés and meta-concepts (concepts about concepts). Be more straightforward!
• Not prevention – but prevents or prevented – don’t use dead nouns.
• Be more vivid while using your mother tongue – don’t use passive where it’s not needed. Direct the reader’s gaze to something in the world.
• The curse of knowledge – the reader doesn’t know what you know – beware of that.
• Explain technical terms.
• Use examples when you explain a difficult term.
• If you ever say “I think I understand this” it probably means you don’t.
• It’s better to underestimate the lingo of your readers than to overestimate it.
• Functional fixedness – if we know some object (or idea) well, we tend to see it in terms of usage, not just as an object.
• Use concrete language instead of an abstraction.
• Show your work to people before you publish (get feedback!).
• Wait for a few days and then revise, revise, revise. Think about clarity and the sound of sentences. Then show it to someone. Then revise one more time. Then publish (if it’s to be serious work).
• Look at it from the perspective of other people.
• Omit needless words.
• Put the heaviest words at the end of the sentence.
• It’s good to use the passive, but only when appropriate.
• Check all text for cohesion. Make sure that the sentences flow gently.
• In expository work, go from general to more specific. But in journalism start from the big news and then give more details.
• Use the paragraph break to give the reader a moment to take a breath.
• Use the verb instead of a noun (make it more active) – not “cancellation”, but “canceled”. But after you introduce the action, you can refer to it with a noun.
• Avoid too many negations.
• If you write about why something is so, don’t spend too much time writing about why it is not.

On Writing Well – By William Zinsser

• Writing is a craft. You need to sit down every day and practice your craft.
• You should re-write and polish your prose a lot.
• Throw out all the clutter. Don’t keep it because you like it. Aim for readability.
• Look at the best examples of English literature . There’s hardly any needless garbage there.
• Use shorter expressions. Don’t add extra words that don’t bring any value to your work.
• Don’t use pompous language. Use simple language and say plainly what’s going on (“because” equals “because”).
• The media and politics are full of cluttered prose (because it helps them to cover up for their mistakes).
• You can’t add style to your work (and especially, don’t add fancy words to create an illusion of style). That will look fake. You need to develop a style.
• Write in the “I” mode. Write to a friend or just for yourself. Show your personality. There is a person behind the writing.
• Choose your words carefully. Use the dictionary to learn different shades of meaning.
• Remember about phonology. Make music with words .
• The lead is essential. Pull the reader in. Otherwise, your article is dead.
• You don’t have to make the final judgment on any topic. Just pick the right angle.
• Do your research. Not just obvious research, but a deep one.
• When it’s time to stop, stop. And finish strong. Think about the last sentence. Surprise them.
• Use quotations. Ask people. Get them talking.
• If you write about travel, it must be significant to the reader. Don’t bother with the obvious. Choose your words with special care. Avoid travel clichés at all costs. Don’t tell that the sand was white and there were rocks on the beach. Look for the right detail.
• If you want to learn how to write about art, travel, science, etc. – read the best examples available. Learn from the masters.
• Concentrate on one big idea (“Let’s not go peeing down both legs”).
• “The reader has to feel that the writer is feeling good.”
• One very helpful question: “What is the piece really about?” (Not just “What the piece is about?”)

Now immerse yourself in the world of essays

By reading the essays from the list above, you’ll become a better writer , a better reader, but also a better person. An essay is a special form of writing. It is the only literary form that I know of that is an absolute requirement for career or educational advancement. Nowadays, you can use an AI essay writer or an AI essay generator that will get the writing done for you, but if you have personal integrity and strong moral principles, avoid doing this at all costs. For me as a writer, the effect of these authors’ masterpieces is often deeply personal. You won’t be able to find the beautiful thoughts they contain in any other literary form. I hope you enjoy the read and that it will inspire you to do your writing. This list is only an attempt to share some of the best essays available online. Next up, you may want to check the list of magazines and websites that accept personal essays .

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by Michelle Boyd Waters, M.Ed.  

Essays Every High School Student Should Read

December 4, 2016 in  Pedagogy

One of the most important goals of any English class should be to help students learn how to express themselves to an audience — how to tell their own stories, how to provide much-needed information, and how to convince others to see things from a different perspective.

Below are some essays students can read, not only to help them see how such writing is done in the real world, but also to learn more about the world around them.

[bctt tweet=”Need a #mentortext for student essays? Check out these exemplars for personal narrative, argumentative, and expository essay writing.”]

Note : This is a living list. I will continue adding to it as I find important essays and articles, and as my readers make suggestions.

If You Think Racism Doesn’t Exist by Jordan Womack | Lesson Plan

A 17-year-old Oklahoma author details incidents of discrimination he has faced within his own community. Brief, yet impactful, the author’s authenticity strikes readers at their core and naturally leads the audience to consider other perspectives.

Facebook hack ‘worse than when my house burned down’ says teacher by Michelle Boyd Waters, M.Ed.

When a hacker destroyed my Facebook account and I couldn’t find a way to reach out to Facebook, I decided to use my story, voice, and platform to shed light on a situation faced by people around the world. This can serve as a mentor text for students writing personal narratives on shared experiences in the context of current events.

Letter from a Vietnamese to an Iraqi Refugee by Andrew Lam

Vietnamese lecturer, journalist, and author Andrew Lam offers advice in this letter to a young Iraqi refugee he sees in a photograph on the Internet.

Allowing Teenage Boys to Love Their Friends by Jan Hoffman

Learn why early and lifelong friendships are as vital for boys as they are for girls and what happens when those friendships are fractured.

Chris Cecil: Plagiarism Gets You Fired by Leonard Pitts Jr

The Miami Herald columnist and 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary winner castigates a Georgia newspaper editor for plagiarizing his work. This column would go great with this followup article from The Boston Globe: Ga. Editor is Fired for Lifting Columns .

Class Dismissed by Walter Kirn

The author of Lost in the Meritocracy postulates that getting rid of the high school senior year might be good for students.

Complaint Box | Packaging by Dylan Quinn

A high school junior complains about the impossible-to-open packaging faced by consumers of everything “from action figures to zip drives.”

Drowning in Dishes, but Finding a Home  by Danial Adkison

In this 2014 essay, a teenager learns important lessons from his boss at Pizza Hut.

How to Tame a Wild Tongue by Gloria Anzaldua

An American scholar of Chicana cultural theory discusses how she maintained her identity by refusing to submit to linguistic terrorism.

Humble Beast: Samaje Perine by John Rohde

The five-time Oklahoma Sportswriter of the Year features the University of Oklahoma’s running back.

In Praise of the F Word by Mary Sherry

An adult literacy program teacher argues that allowing students to fail will actually help them.

The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me by Sherman Alexie

A Native American novelist recounts his experience loving reading and finally writing in spite of a culture that expected him to fail in the “non-Indian world” in order to be accepted.

Lane’s Legacy: One Final Ride by Keith Ryan Cartwright

A heartbreaking look back at the hours before and the circumstances surrounding Lane Frost’s untimely death, followed by reflections on his rise to fame — before and after death.

Learning to Read by Malcolm X

The 1960s Civil Rights leader writes about how educating himself in prison opened his mind and lead him to become one of the leading spokesmen for black separatism.

Learning to Read and Write by Frederick Douglass

A former slave born in 1818 discusses how he learned to read in spite of laws against teaching slaves and how reading opened his eyes to his “wretched condition, without remedy.”

Learning From Animal Friendships by Erica Goode

Scientists consider studying the phenomenon of cross-species animal friendships like the ones you see on YouTube.

Losing Everything, Except What Really Matters by Dan Barry

After a 2011 tornado destroys a house, but spares the family, a reporter writes about what’s important.

The Marked Woman by David Grann

How an Osage Indian family in Oklahoma became the prime target of one of the most sinister crimes in American history.

Meet Mikey, 8: U.S. Has Him on Watch List by Lizette Alvarez

Read about what happens if you happen to share a name of a “suspicious person” on the U.S. No-Fly List.

Newly Homeless in Japan Re-Establish Order Amid Chaos by Michael Wines

After the tsunami that resulted in nuclear disaster in 2011, a reporter writes about the “quiet bravery in the face of tragedy” of the Japanese people.

No Ordinary Joe by Rick Reilly

Why in creation did American Football Conference’s 1981 best young running back Joe Delaney jump into that pit full of water that day, even though he couldn’t swim?

Politics and the English Language By George Orwell

Animal Farm and 1984 author, Orwell correlates the degradation of the English language into multi-syllabic drivel and the corruption of the American political process.

Serving in Florida by Barbara Ehrenreich

The Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America author tells about her experiences attempting to survive on income of low-paying jobs.

Starvation Under the Orange Trees by John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck, who later authored the fictionalized account of Okies in California, The Grapes of Wrath, first wrote this essay documenting the starvation of migrant workers in California during the Great Depression.

To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This by Mandy Len Catron

Is falling in love really a random event, or can two people “love smarter?”

We’ll Go Forward from this Moment by Leonard Pitts

The 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary winner pens a column chronicling the toughness of the American family’s spirit in the face of the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attacks. He wrote the column one day after the attacks.

What’s Wrong with Black English? by Rachel L. Jones

Jones, a student at Southern Illinois University in the 1980s, wrote this piece for Newsweek. In her essay, Jones adds her story and perspective to the debate over Black English.

Related topics: Mentor Texts , Teaching Writing

About the author 

Michelle Boyd Waters, M.Ed.

I am a secondary English Language Arts teacher, a University of Oklahoma student working on my doctorate in Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum with an concentration in English Education and co-Editor of the Oklahoma English Journal. I am constantly seeking ways to amplify students' voices and choices.

A wonderful list of essays! I have neglected to teach essays as literature (only as student writing samples before we began work on an essay, after a novel). I’m looking forward to using these!

Thank you very much! I’d love to hear (or read) your feedback on the selections. Your input can help other teachers decide which essays to teach their students.

This list looks really great. Unfortunately, the first two links I chose were not working. One took me to a professors homepage and the other never opened.

Thank you for letting us know. I checked the “If you think racism doesn’t exist” went to the WordPress.com site where the author wrote his article and “Letter from a Vietnamese to an Iraqi Refugee” went to the Huffington Post article. Is it possible that your school web filter is blocking WordPress and Huffington Post?

Thank you for this. I am teaching a summer class that prepares 8th graders for high school essay writing. Trying to find a way to make it more creative and interesting, even interactive. I like the essays. If you have ideas about specific ways to use them, beyond reading and discussion, I would love to hear them.

You’re welcome! I think additional activities would depend on who your students are, their interests, and which essay(s) you plan to use. Perhaps if you join our RTE Facebook group and tell us about your kids and the essay you want to use, we can devise some activities to help them engage. Check us out here .

Comments are closed.

Most Read in 2021

Year-End Lists!

We don’t publish a lot of lists. But this year, having launched this new website with nearly complete access to 30 years of magazine archives, we thought it seemed like a good time to look back at the stories that resonated with our readers. 

In that spirit, we’ve compiled the most-read pieces published on our website in 2021, as well as the most-read work from our archives. 

And for good measure, we’ve pulled together a few pieces worth an honorable mention; our favorite Sunday Short Reads ; CNF content that was republished elsewhere; and the best advice, inspiration, and think pieces from some of our favorite publications.

Finally, if you enjoy what follows, please know there’s plenty more! We have a soft paywall on our site, which allows for three free reads a month. To get unlimited access for as little as $4/month, simply subscribe today.

Top 10 Published in 2021

• Almost Behind Us A dental emergency interrupts a meaningful anniversary // JENNIFER BOWERING DELISLE
• El Valle, 1991 An early lesson in strength and fragility // AURELIA KESSLER
• Stay at Home All those hours alone with a new baby can be rough // JARED HANKS
• The Desert Was His Home There are many things we don’t know about Mr. Otomatsu Wada, and a few things we do // ERIC L. MULLER
• Just a Big Cat The dramatic boredom of jury duty // ERICA GOSS
• What Will We Do for Fun Now? Her parents survived World War II and the Blitz just fine … didn’t they? // JANE RATCLIFFE
• Harriet Two brothers and a turtle // TYLER McANDREW
• Rango Getting existential at a funeral for a lizard   // JARRETT G. ZIEMER
• Mouse Lessons from a hamster emergency // BEVERLY PETRAVICIUS
• Roxy & the Worm Box Trying to recapture a childhood love of dirt // ANJOLI ROY

Top 5 from the Archive

• Picturing the Personal Essay A visual guide // TIM BASCOM
• The 5 Rs of Creative Nonfiction The essayist at work   // LEE GUTKIND
• The Line Between Fact & Fiction Do not add, and do not deceive // ROY PETER CLARK
• The Braided Essay as Social Justice Action The braided essay may be the most effective form for our times // NICOLE WALKER
• On Fame, Success, and Writing Like a Mother#^@%*& An interview with Cheryl Strayed   // ELISSA BASSIST

Honorable Mention ( ICYMI Essays)

• Latinx Heritage Month Who do you complain to when it’s HR you have a problem with? // MELISSA LUJAN MESKU
• Women’s Work Sometimes, freedom means choosing your obligations // EILEEN GARVIN
• Bloodlines and Bitter Syrup Avoiding prison in Huntsville, Texas, is nearly impossible // WILL BRIDGES
• Stealth A nontraditional couple struggles with keeping part of their life together private while undertaking the public act of filing for marriage // HEATHER OSTERMAN-DAVIS
• Something Like Vertigo An environmental writer sees parallels between her father’s declining equilibrium and a world turned upside down   // ELIZABETH RUSH

Our favorite Sunday Short Reads from our partners 

from BREVITY

• What Joy Looks Like SSR #128  // DORIAN FOX
• How to Do Nothing SSR #156 // ABIGAIL THOMAS

from DIAGRAM

• At 86, My Grandmother Regrets Two Things SSR #134 // DIANA XIN
• The Seedy Corner SSR #140 // KIMBERLY GARZA

from RIVER TEETH

• Waste Not SSR #131 // DESIREE COOPER
• This Is Orange SSR #141 // JILL KOLONGOWSKI

from SWEET LITERARY

• The Pilgrim’s Prescription SSR #122  // CAROLYN ALESSIO
• Leaves in the Hall SSR #160 // ANNE GUDGER

Our favorite stories from around the internet. 

Advice & Inspiration

• In Praise of the Meander Rebecca Solnit on letting nonfiction narrative find its own way (via Lit Hub )
• What’s Missing Here? A Fragmentary, Lyric Essay About Fragmentary, Lyric Essays Julie Marie Wade on the mode that never quite feels finished (via Lit Hub )
• Getting Honest about Om A brief essay on audience (via Brevity )
• Using the Personal to Write the Global Intimate details, personal exploration and respect for facts (via Nieman Storyboard )
• Fix Your Scene Shapes And quickly improve your manuscript (via Jane Friedman’s blog)

The State of Nonfiction

• What the NYT ‘Guest Essay’ Means for the Future of Creative Nonfiction Description (via Brevity )
• How the Role of Personal Expression and Experience Is Changing Journalism On the future of the newsroom (via Poynter )
• 50 Shades of Nuance in a Polarized World An essayist ponders when to write black-and-white polemics that attract clicks, and when to be more considered (via Nieman Storyboard )
• These Literary Memoirs Take a Different Tack Description (via NY Times )
• The Politics of Gatekeeping On reconsidering the ethics of blind submissions (via Poets & Writers )

The internet can be a dark and, quite often, violent place for women — many of whom are subjected to trolling, harassment, and threats on a daily basis. But it can also be a truly wonderful place, one that provides free access to news, educational resources, entertainment, communication, and wealth of incredible writing — including these empowering essays by women you can read online right now . Written by Cecile Richards, Lindy West, Lady Gaga, and more, these essays are filled with inspiration and wisdom to guide you through your day.

For female readers, the online world can sometimes feel like a minefield, one that is littered with destructive words meant to tear women down or shut them up. But for famous authors and writers, beloved celebrities, and popular athletes, it can also serve as the perfect platform to share their empowering stories, which often include plenty of inspirational anecdotes and practical advice that makes the whole mess of the internet worth it.

Whether you’re looking for a bit of guidance in your own life, or hoping to inspire your friends with some sage advice from more experienced women, here are nine empowering essays you can read for free online right now .

"The Most Daring Women Don’t Always Make Headlines" by Cecile Richards

"Today, women across this country are doing her proud. The earth is shifting under the force of millions of women standing up for themselves, for each other, for their daughters and their mothers and sisters," writes the former president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund Cecile Richards in her inspiring piece about women and activism for Harper's Bazaar . "Women are no longer asking for permission. They’re just diving in and taking risks. They know we can’t afford to sit this one out."

Read the full essay here .

"Rebranding Motherhood" by Diksha Basu

"If anything, so far being a mother feels quite delightfully self-indulgent. I have a daughter in whom I can constantly look for and find little bits of myself or, better yet, improved bits of myself," writes Windfall author Dikashu Basu in a moving essay for The New York Times about redefining motherhood. "Recently a construction worker called out to me on the street in Lower Manhattan and I got my angry anti-catcalling face ready to respond but he very respectfully said, 'You have a beautiful daughter, ma’am.' My vanity now has two bodies within which to reside — the sacrifice looks more like narcissism from certain angles."

Read the full essay here.

"This Is Survival" by Aly Raisman

In a heartbreaking but incredibly powerful essay for The Players' Tribune , American gymnast Aly Raisman opens up about her experience with sexual abuse, and offers some words of encouragement to anyone else who has gone through the same thing. "I am not a victim. I am a survivor. The abuse does not define me, or anyone else who has been abused. This does not define the millions of those who’ve suffered sexual abuse," the two-time Olympian writes. "They are not victims, either. They are survivors. They are strong, they are brave, they are changing things so the next generation never has to go through what they did."

"What I Learned at War" by Tammy Duckworth

Senator Tammy Duckworth has often spoken out about her time serving in the U.S. army, including in this persuasive essay about the price of war and what it can teach us that she wrote for Politico. "That day, I lost both of my legs, but I was given a second chance at life," she writes, recounting her experience fighting in the Iraq War. "It’s a feeling that has helped to drive me in my second chance at service—no one should be left behind, and every American deserves another chance."

"The 'Perfect Body' Is a Lie. I Believed It For a Long Time and Let It Shrink My Life" by Lindy West

If you have read Lindy West's memoir Shrill , you know that she has a lot of incredibly insightful things to say fat acceptance and body positivity. In an essay for The Guardian, she shares some of them, saying "The 'perfect body' is a lie. I believed in it for a long time, and I let it shape my life, and shrink it – my real life, populated by my real body. Don’t let fiction tell you what to do. In the omnidirectional orgy gardens of Vlaxnoid, no one cares about your arm flab."

"Bring It On" by Ibtihaj Muhammad

The first Muslim American to medal in the Olympics, fencing champion Ibtihaj Muhammad opened up about what it is like to compete in an sport where so few people look like her. "One day, during a fifteen-hour flight to a training camp in Beijing, I arrived at a moment where I said enough is enough — I’d spent years fighting for every win, every opportunity, every ounce of respect on my path to becoming an Olympian, and I was no longer going to allow other people to affect how I perceived myself or restrict what I was capable of," she writes in Lenny Letter. "When people stared me down at a tournament, I didn’t know if it was a race thing or a religious thing or that they weren’t ready for change, but I finally realized: Why was that burden on me to figure out? I didn’t have the time to acquire their baggage or analyze why anyone wanted to make me feel inferior. I had a job to do on that team, and that job was winning a medal."

"Why It's So Important That CEOs Like Me Speak Out Against Trump" by Reshma Saujani

In an essay about corporate responsibility in the age of Trump by Reshma Saujani, the Girls Who Code founder and CEO reminds readers that individuals have a lot of power to enact change. "But if every American has the power to sway a CEO," she argues in a piece for Teen Vogue, "then every American quite literally has a chance to sway public opinion, to shape the way we talk and think and act on our values system — to change the way we treat our fellow Americans and those who come here seeking a better life for their families."

"Ava DuVernay on How to 'Pivot Towards Positivity' in Trying Times" by Ava DuVernay

There are few creatives as wise, or as giving when it comes to advice, as A Wrinkle in Time director Ava DuVernay. "These days I’m a lot less competitive, a lot less concerned about what other people do. I’m much more focused on the things that make me happy," she writes in an inspirational essay for InStyle. "I believe that good comes when you put out good, and so I just try to emanate joyful vibes. Why not? I’m not going to spend my day hating on someone else. I’ve got so many better and more joy-filled things to do."

"Portrait of a Lady" by Lady Gaga

In her 2016 essay on being a woman in the modern world, Lady Gaga opens up and offers a truly refreshing and inspiring perspective. "Being a lady today means being a fighter. It means being a survivor," she writes. "It means letting yourself be vulnerable and acknowledging your shame or that you're sad or you're angry. It takes great strength to do that."

Folk music was never green

Don’t be swayed by the sound of environmental protest: these songs were first sung in the voice of the cutter, not the tree

Richard Smyth

Nations and empires

A United States of Europe

A free and unified Europe was first imagined by Italian radicals in the 19th century. Could we yet see their dream made real?

Fernanda Gallo

Stories and literature

On Jewish revenge

What might a people, subjected to unspeakable historical suffering, think about the ethics of vengeance once in power?

Shachar Pinsker

Building embryos

For 3,000 years, humans have struggled to understand the embryo. Now there is a revolution underway

John Wallingford

Design and fashion

Sitting on the art

Given its intimacy with the body and deep play on form and function, furniture is a ripely ambiguous artform of its own

Emma Crichton Miller

Learning to be happier

In order to help improve my students’ mental health, I offered a course on the science of happiness. It worked – but why?

Consciousness and altered states

How perforated squares of trippy blotter paper allowed outlaw chemists and wizard-alchemists to dose the world with LSD

Last hours of an organ donor

In the liminal time when the brain is dead but organs are kept alive, there is an urgent tenderness to medical care

Ronald W Dworkin

The environment

We need to find a way for human societies to prosper while the planet heals. So far we can’t even think clearly about it

Ville Lähde

Archaeology

Why make art in the dark?

New research transports us back to the shadowy firelight of ancient caves, imagining the minds and feelings of the artists

Izzy Wisher

Do liberal arts liberate?

In Jack London’s novel, Martin Eden personifies debates still raging over the role and purpose of education in American life

Politics and government

India and indigeneity

In a country of such extraordinary diversity, the UN definition of ‘indigenous’ does little more than fuel ethnic violence

Dikshit Sarma Bhagabati

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365 essays for english learners.

1 America: Land of Opportunity

2 The Fourth of July

3 The U.S. Federal Government

4 Christmas: A Holiday of Traditions

5 New Year's Day: A Holiday of New Beginnings

6 Martin Luther King Jr Day: To Remember a Civil Rights Leader

7 Valentine's Day: A Holiday of Love and Friendship

8 St. Patrick's Day: A Holiday to Celebrate the Irish

9 Passover: A Jewish Holiday of Remembering

10 Easter: An Important Christian Holiday

11 Mother's Day: A Holiday to Honor Motherhood

12 Father's Day: A Holiday to Honor Fatherhood

13 Memorial Day: A Holiday to Remember Fallen Soldiers

14 Labor Day: A Holiday to Honor Workers

15 Columbus Day: A Holiday to Remember an Explorer

16 Halloween: A Holiday for Costumes and Candy

17 Veterans Day: A Holiday Honoring All Soldiers

18 Chanukah: A Holiday of Lights

19 Thanksgiving: Families Coming Together

20 Lottery: A Chance at Millions

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The Best Reviewed Essay Collections of 2021

Featuring joan didion, rachel kushner, hanif abdurraqib, ann patchett, jenny diski, and more.

Well, friends, another grim and grueling plague year is drawing to a close, and that can mean only one thing: it’s time to put on our Book Marks stats hats and tabulate the best reviewed books of the past twelve months.

Yes, using reviews drawn from more than 150 publications, over the next two weeks we’ll be revealing the most critically-acclaimed books of 2021, in the categories of (deep breath): Memoir and Biography ; Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror ; Short Story Collections ; Essay Collections; Poetry; Mystery and Crime; Graphic Literature; Literature in Translation; General Fiction; and General Nonfiction.

Today’s installment: Essay Collections .

Brought to you by Book Marks , Lit Hub’s “Rotten Tomatoes for books.”

1. These Precious Days by Ann Patchett (Harper)

21 Rave • 3 Positive • 1 Mixed Read Ann Patchett on creating the work space you need, here

“… excellent … Patchett has a talent for friendship and celebrates many of those friends here. She writes with pure love for her mother, and with humor and some good-natured exasperation at Karl, who is such a great character he warrants a book of his own. Patchett’s account of his feigned offer to buy a woman’s newly adopted baby when she expresses unwarranted doubts is priceless … The days that Patchett refers to are precious indeed, but her writing is anything but. She describes deftly, with a line or a look, and I considered the absence of paragraphs freighted with adjectives to be a mercy. I don’t care about the hue of the sky or the shade of the couch. That’s not writing; it’s decorating. Or hiding. Patchett’s heart, smarts and 40 years of craft create an economy that delivers her perfectly understated stories emotionally whole. Her writing style is most gloriously her own.”

–Alex Witchel ( The New York Times Book Review )

2. Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion (Knopf)

14 Rave • 12 Positive • 6 Mixed Read an excerpt from Let Me Tell You What I Mean here

“In five decades’ worth of essays, reportage and criticism, Didion has documented the charade implicit in how things are, in a first-person, observational style that is not sacrosanct but common-sensical. Seeing as a way of extrapolating hypocrisy, disingenuousness and doubt, she’ll notice the hydrangeas are plastic and mention it once, in passing, sorting the scene. Her gaze, like a sentry on the page, permanently trained on what is being disguised … The essays in Let Me Tell You What I Mean are at once funny and touching, roving and no-nonsense. They are about humiliation and about notions of rightness … Didion’s pen is like a periscope onto the creative mind—and, as this collection demonstrates, it always has been. These essays offer a direct line to what’s in the offing.”

–Durga Chew-Bose ( The New York Times Book Review )

3. Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit (Viking)

12 Rave • 13 Positive • 1 Mixed Read an excerpt from Orwell’s Roses here

“… on its simplest level, a tribute by one fine essayist of the political left to another of an earlier generation. But as with any of Solnit’s books, such a description would be reductive: the great pleasure of reading her is spending time with her mind, its digressions and juxtapositions, its unexpected connections. Only a few contemporary writers have the ability to start almost anywhere and lead the reader on paths that, while apparently meandering, compel unfailingly and feel, by the end, cosmically connected … Somehow, Solnit’s references to Ross Gay, Michael Pollan, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Peter Coyote (to name but a few) feel perfectly at home in the narrative; just as later chapters about an eighteenth-century portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds and a visit to the heart of the Colombian rose-growing industry seem inevitable and indispensable … The book provides a captivating account of Orwell as gardener, lover, parent, and endlessly curious thinker … And, movingly, she takes the time to find the traces of Orwell the gardener and lover of beauty in his political novels, and in his insistence on the value and pleasure of things .”

–Claire Messud ( Harper’s )

4. Girlhood by Melissa Febos (Bloomsbury)

16 Rave • 5 Positive • 1 Mixed Read an excerpt from Girlhood here

“Every once in a while, a book comes along that feels so definitive, so necessary, that not only do you want to tell everyone to read it now, but you also find yourself wanting to go back in time and tell your younger self that you will one day get to read something that will make your life make sense. Melissa Febos’s fierce nonfiction collection, Girlhood , might just be that book. Febos is one of our most passionate and profound essayists … Girlhood …offers us exquisite, ferocious language for embracing self-pleasure and self-love. It’s a book that women will wish they had when they were younger, and that they’ll rejoice in having now … Febos is a balletic memoirist whose capacious gaze can take in so many seemingly disparate things and unfurl them in a graceful, cohesive way … Intellectual and erotic, engaging and empowering[.]”

–Michelle Hart ( Oprah Daily )

5. Why Didn’t You Just Do What You Were Told by Jenny Diski (Bloomsbury)

14 Rave • 7 Positive

“[Diski’s] reputation as an original, witty and cant-free thinker on the way we live now should be given a significant boost. Her prose is elegant and amused, as if to counter her native melancholia and includes frequent dips into memorable images … Like the ideal artist Henry James conjured up, on whom nothing is lost, Diski notices everything that comes her way … She is discerning about serious topics (madness and death) as well as less fraught material, such as fashion … in truth Diski’s first-person voice is like no other, selectively intimate but not overbearingly egotistic, like, say, Norman Mailer’s. It bears some resemblance to Joan Didion’s, if Didion were less skittish and insistently stylish and generated more warmth. What they have in common is their innate skepticism and the way they ask questions that wouldn’t occur to anyone else … Suffice it to say that our culture, enmeshed as it is in carefully arranged snapshots of real life, needs Jenny Diski, who, by her own admission, ‘never owned a camera, never taken one on holiday.’” It is all but impossible not to warm up to a writer who observes herself so keenly … I, in turn, wish there were more people around who thought like Diski. The world would be a more generous, less shallow and infinitely more intriguing place.”

–Daphne Merkin ( The New York Times Book Review )

6. The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000-2020 by Rachel Kushner (Scribner)

12 Rave • 7 Positive Listen to an interview with Rachel Kushner here

“Whether she’s writing about Jeff Koons, prison abolition or a Palestinian refugee camp in Jerusalem, [Kushner’s] interested in appearances, and in the deeper currents a surface detail might betray … Her writing is magnetised by outlaw sensibility, hard lives lived at a slant, art made in conditions of ferment and unrest, though she rarely serves a platter that isn’t style-mag ready … She makes a pretty convincing case for a political dimension to Jeff Koons’s vacuities and mirrored surfaces, engages repeatedly with the Italian avant garde and writes best of all about an artist friend whose death undoes a spell of nihilism … It’s not just that Kushner is looking back on the distant city of youth; more that she’s the sole survivor of a wild crowd done down by prison, drugs, untimely death … What she remembers is a whole world, but does the act of immortalising it in language also drain it of its power,’neon, in pink, red, and warm white, bleeding into the fog’? She’s mining a rich seam of specificity, her writing charged by the dangers she ran up against. And then there’s the frank pleasure of her sentences, often shorn of definite articles or odd words, so they rev and bucket along … That New Journalism style, live hard and keep your eyes open, has long since given way to the millennial cult of the personal essay, with its performance of pain, its earnest display of wounds received and lessons learned. But Kushner brings it all flooding back. Even if I’m skeptical of its dazzle, I’m glad to taste something this sharp, this smart.”

–Olivia Laing ( The Guardian )

7. The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century by Amia Srinivasan (FSG)

12 Rave • 7 Positive • 5 Mixed • 1 Pan

“[A] quietly dazzling new essay collection … This is, needless to say, fraught terrain, and Srinivasan treads it with determination and skill … These essays are works of both criticism and imagination. Srinivasan refuses to resort to straw men; she will lay out even the most specious argument clearly and carefully, demonstrating its emotional power, even if her ultimate intention is to dismantle it … This, then, is a book that explicitly addresses intersectionality, even if Srinivasan is dissatisfied with the common—and reductive—understanding of the term … Srinivasan has written a compassionate book. She has also written a challenging one … Srinivasan proposes the kind of education enacted in this brilliant, rigorous book. She coaxes our imaginations out of the well-worn grooves of the existing order.”

–Jennifer Szalai ( The New York Times )

8. A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib (Random House)

13 Rave • 4 Positive Listen to an interview with Hanif Abdurraqib here

“[A] wide, deep, and discerning inquest into the Beauty of Blackness as enacted on stages and screens, in unanimity and discord, on public airwaves and in intimate spaces … has brought to pop criticism and cultural history not just a poet’s lyricism and imagery but also a scholar’s rigor, a novelist’s sense of character and place, and a punk-rocker’s impulse to dislodge conventional wisdom from its moorings until something shakes loose and is exposed to audiences too lethargic to think or even react differently … Abdurraqib cherishes this power to enlarge oneself within or beyond real or imagined restrictions … Abdurraqib reminds readers of the massive viewing audience’s shock and awe over seeing one of the world’s biggest pop icons appearing midfield at this least radical of American rituals … Something about the seemingly insatiable hunger Abdurraqib shows for cultural transaction, paradoxical mischief, and Beauty in Blackness tells me he’ll get to such matters soon enough.”

–Gene Seymour ( Bookforum )

9. On Animals by Susan Orlean (Avid Reader Press)

11 Rave • 6 Positive • 1 Mixed Listen to an interview with Susan Orlean here

“I very much enjoyed Orlean’s perspective in these original, perceptive, and clever essays showcasing the sometimes strange, sometimes sick, sometimes tender relationships between people and animals … whether Orlean is writing about one couple’s quest to find their lost dog, the lives of working donkeys of the Fez medina in Morocco, or a man who rescues lions (and happily allows even full grown males to gently chew his head), her pages are crammed with quirky characters, telling details, and flabbergasting facts … Readers will find these pages full of astonishments … Orlean excels as a reporter…Such thorough reporting made me long for updates on some of these stories … But even this criticism only testifies to the delight of each of the urbane and vivid stories in this collection. Even though Orlean claims the animals she writes about remain enigmas, she makes us care about their fates. Readers will continue to think about these dogs and donkeys, tigers and lions, chickens and pigeons long after we close the book’s covers. I hope most of them are still well.”

–Sy Montgomery ( The Boston Globe )

10. Graceland, at Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache from the American South  by Margaret Renkl (Milkweed Editions)

9 Rave • 5 Positive Read Margaret Renkl on finding ideas everywhere, here

“Renkl’s sense of joyful belonging to the South, a region too often dismissed on both coasts in crude stereotypes and bad jokes, co-exists with her intense desire for Southerners who face prejudice or poverty finally to be embraced and supported … Renkl at her most tender and most fierce … Renkl’s gift, just as it was in her first book Late Migrations , is to make fascinating for others what is closest to her heart … Any initial sense of emotional whiplash faded as as I proceeded across the six sections and realized that the book is largely organized around one concept, that of fair and loving treatment for all—regardless of race, class, sex, gender or species … What rises in me after reading her essays is Lewis’ famous urging to get in good trouble to make the world fairer and better. Many people in the South are doing just that—and through her beautiful writing, Renkl is among them.”

–Barbara J. King ( NPR )

Our System:

RAVE = 5 points • POSITIVE = 3 points • MIXED = 1 point • PAN = -5 points

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“ the world’s on fire ” by dena linn.

🏆 Winner of Contest #249

Trigger: Cancer My head rocks back, long hair sticks to sweaty shoulders and my tank barely holds my jiggling A-cups as I pound it out, dancing. I’m that “Girl on Fire,” a single mom gyrating to Ms. Keys. Flinging out one arm, hips swing and dip, fingers snap, eyes close, and my rock and roll fantasy, straight from a music video: my apartment’s clutter, with the snap of my fingers, flies to order. I burn, more than a flickering flame, heart thumps, shoulders shimmy, sweat drips into my pierced belly button. The fuchsia, sun-yellow and ...

“ Paradise Lost ” by Honey Homecroft

🏆 Winner of Contest #248

Calls for help came every day, in every language spoken from Alpha Centauri to Xanoid 10. Meteor. Famine. War!!! Help us, they pleaded. Whoever they was in that particular society that had figured out how to contact us. “Please remain calm,” I used to say. “A unit will be dispatched to your location.” But after our people went Silent, the calls went more like this:  “Hello? We need help.” “We're sorry, but Planetary Assistance is no longer available. Our thoughts are with you during your pending apocalypse. Goodbye.” “Wait —” And I woul...

Introducing Prompted , a new magazine written by you!

🏆 Featuring 12 prize-winning stories from our community. Download it now for FREE .

“ DANGER: UNSTABLE GROUND ” by Madeline McCourt

🏆 Winner of Contest #247

Do not ever step foot on the ground. Charlie had been told this his entire life, but it never really sunk in. He didn’t understand the deep-seated fear everyone else seemed to harbor. He thought it was incredible, a beautiful problem to be solved. Until he was laying on the floor of the lab staring at the ceiling and blinking away tears. The first time Charlie ever saw the ground consume a person he’d been twelve. What the tree-top teachers referred to as “live mummification” was a quick, disturbing process. Dirt crawling over skin to creat...

“ Hearts Are Trump ” by Sarah Coury

🏆 Winner of Contest #246

Uncle Abe and Uncle Will haven’t played cards together in years. If you want to get real technical about it, Uncle Abe and Uncle Will haven’t even shared the same room in years, but that ain’t news to anyone east of Livernois. By now, the entire city of Detroit knows about Abraham and William Haddad—at least those who regularly stop into the family party store for their weekly supply of meats, spirits, and fresh-baked pita. It’s old news. Two bitter brothers broken up over a girl who left town anyway. It’s been ages and the aunties need fres...

“ Everything is Connected ” by Olivier Breuleux

🏆 Winner of Contest #245

Many people don't believe that everything is connected. It's strange. They believe in magnets, in electromagnetic waves, in quantum action at a distance. They believe that the force of gravity makes the Earth revolve around the Sun, and yet they do not believe that the same forces can influence the smaller details of our fate. They believe that it is all up to them. That they have free will. They say that Jupiter can gently pull the Sun, yet it cannot move our infinitely smaller souls.A paradox.The stars are difficult to read, for sure. The ...

“ The Party ” by Kerriann Murray

🏆 Winner of Contest #244

My phone buzzed. I rolled over to look at the text my cousin Maya had just sent. Can you send photo you took of all the girls in costume last night? xoxo My head was throbbing. Hanging out with Maya was fun, but she was eight years younger than me and she and her friends loved to do shots. I needed to stick with beer only if I didn’t want the hangover. That’s what I'd do next time. I opened my photos app to find the picture Maya had requested. It was a group shot I had no memory of taking. It wasn’t everyone who’d been at the party - just th...

“ Ke Kulanakauhale ma ke Kai, or The City by The Sea ” by Thomas Iannucci

🏆 Winner of Contest #243

Ke Kulanakauhale ma ke Kaior,The City by the Seaby thomas iannucci Author’s Note: In this story I use Hawaiian words, as the story is set in a post-apocalyptic Hawaii. However, I do not italicize them, as I am from Hawaii, and so these words are not foreign to me. Growing up there were many English words unfamiliar to us in school, and they were never italicized; I would like this same standard to be applied to Hawaiian, which is, for better or for worse, also now a language in the United States. Mahalo for your kokua. “The city by the sea,...

“ Do Not Touch ” by Niamh O'Dea

🏆 Winner of Contest #242

Jen lived by the unwritten rules of being single but wanting a child. Don’t look at children. Don’t engage with children. Don’t talk about children. Don’t let other people talk about their children. And don’t, for the love of all that is holy, tell anyone you long for a child. A nearby suitor could be eyeing you up, biting their bottom lip at the sight of your untoned bum, lusting after your wide midriff, admiring your conical legs. They could be subconsciously sliding you through their mental mold of their dream woman, seeing you slot in j...

“ When I Read Beckett ” by Liz Grosul

🏆 Winner of Contest #241

…in…in this room…cursed room…loved?... cursed…. where she slept…half-grown in her hometown t-shirt…shorts…no shorts…t-shirt worn with holes…on the floor…he having thrown it…under the bed…dust collected and swept and settled again…. and again…who?... he… not she?...gracious!...there for the first time…assuredly last time…no boys in the room, father said…keep out!...nodded her head… but in the room…blue light hugging the window…scotch tape…peeling off the paint whether chipped or freshly laid or…exhumed…he found her in the— no, not found…held…...

“ Lost and Found ” by Jonathan Page

🏆 Winner of Contest #240

On my last shift as a lighthouse keeper, I climbed the seventy-six spiral iron stairs and two ladders to the watch room, the number of steps the same as my age. The thwomp and snare of each step laid an ominous background score. Something wasn’t right. At that very moment, Richie Tedesco was pointing a fire extinguisher at the burning electrical panel in the engine room of his boat a few miles offshore.The placard in the watch room read “Marge Mabrity, Lightkeeper—First lighted the depths on March 2nd, 1985, and hasn’t missed a night.” Alrea...

“ Metonymia ” by Gem Cassia

🏆 Winner of Contest #239

“God is dead.” “Which one?” “I meant it as more of a blanket statement, but if we’re getting into specifics, I guess I mean the one that I killed.” [When | the | god | of | cause-and-effect | is | slaughtered | in | cold | blood | everyone | knows | who | to | blame.]“People aren’t too pleased about that, you know.” “I’ve heard.”[Everyone | has | heard.]<...

“ Five Turns of the Hourglass ” by Weronika L

🏆 Winner of Contest #238

I tow my dead father with me to the scorched heart of a desert. His body guilts down my shoulders, heavier each time he doesn't tell me that I took the wrong turn, that I need to straighten my elbows, that I never do anything the right way so why does he even bother. My jeep sputters and chokes under our weight as it brings us to the parking lot in front of the hotel. Vipassana, reads the sign above the glass door, melted open at the hinges. The Silent Retreat. Heat slaps me across the face. I backpack my father around my waist and march to ...

“ Love.edu: Courtship and Coincidence in Modern Academia ” by Eliza Levin

🏆 Winner of Contest #237

Thursday, Jan 18 2:12 PMTo: [email protected]: [email protected]: Your (Brilliant) Paper on Mirrors/Jane EyreDear Professor Rhodes,I hope this email finds you well. I must confess that, although we have never met, I am a longtime admirer of your work—I was actually at your talk on Charlotte Brontë and Elizabeth Gaskell last year, which I greatly enjoyed.I write to you today to express my sincerest compliments on ...

“ Frozen Lemonade ” by Jennifer Fremon

🏆 Winner of Contest #236

Trigger warning: Contains underage sexual content, mentions of assaultYou know the movie Dirty Dancing? The one where Baby goes off to that fancy resort with her parents for the summer, and in the beginning she is a good, sweet girl who loves her daddy, and then by the end she is still a good sweet girl who loves her daddy but now she is kinda sexy too and can dance like a pro and is totally in love with that beautiful dance teacher. Why doesn’t anyone talk about how that teacher is clearly much, much older than Baby, and despite Patrick Swa...

“ KILLER IN THE WILLOWS ” by Kajsa Ohman

🏆 Winner of Contest #235

KILLER IN THE WILLOWSJust do it, so the T-shirts say. Just pick up the gun, pull the trigger—but maybe aim first, aim at the upper sternum and then pull the trigger, congratulating yourself that at last, in your long, passive life, you have shot somebody dead. So she did, and thus she became a murderer. She slipped through the night after that and disappeared into the willows to wash off any blood that spattered onto her clothing. The willows were thickl...

“ 6:47 PST ” by David Pampu

🏆 Winner of Contest #234

What has four faces, eight arms, and can’t tell time? The clock tower at Union Station. Four clocks on the tower and none of them run? I mean, what’re the odds? I peer up at the time and shade my eyes. It’s 6:47 pm. Always is, always will be. And all anyone knows is that on a Monday the world was a loud, frantic place and Tuesday it wasn’t. Tuesday? Really? The world should’ve ended on a Saturd...

“ Vegan Hamburgers ” by Ariana Tibi

🏆 Winner of Contest #233

Vegan Hamburgers February 1st 11:11pm WOW. I cannot believe that just happened. I went to AJ’s studio and almost walked out with a record deal. I was sober, too. He started rolling a joint and offered me some but I immediately said no. Last week, I had drinks at Lighthouse Studios and the executive was totally judging me when...

“ The Lantern of Kaamos ” by Jonathan Page

🏆 Winner of Contest #232

The melting Arctic is a crime scene, and I am like CSI Ny-Ålesund. Trond is the anonymous perpetrator leaving evidence and clues for me to discover, like breadcrumbs leading back to him. “Jonna,” he had said, the day we first met at the research institute, “If you are going to make it up here, don’t lock your doors.” It seemed like a life philosophy, rather than a survival tip.It is ironic. Out on Kings Bay, the coal miners came first, then the science outposts. Trond was already out here mining the Arctic when I was sti...

“ No Junior League ” by Mary Lynne Schuster

🏆 Winner of Contest #231

You are sure you want to do this?   Running away. Starting over.  It’s not as easy as people think. You have to give up everything.  Oh, that part’s easy. Everyone thinks we are all traceable, that you can’t really hide. But, see, everything is tied to your identity. Your papers. If you change those, you are a different person.  Fingerprints? If they’re in the system, if yo...

“ The Lop-it-off-a-me List ” by Ethan Zimmerman

🏆 Winner of Contest #230

The Lop-it-off-a-me List Count money in the envelope one more time. Make sure Marcel has his itinerary. Ask Alex if she will come by to feed Odin. Buy extra cat food and litter so Alex doesn't have to. Give her the spare key next time I see her. Kiss Odin and tell her she is the best cat in the world, even if she has always been destructive...

“ The Gingerbread Cookies ” by Aaron Chin

🏆 Winner of Contest #229

The Gingerbread Cookies Let’s go downstairs and bake some cookies, like mother used to make. The warm smell sits right at home in your nostrils, invading them like wild ax-murderers hacking and slashing their way through endless miles of human bodies that stand in the way of their inhumane, carnal desires. Shhh, shhh, but that’s too dark. It’s Christmas after all. So let’s go down...

“ Cooking Lessons ” by Molly Jenkinson

🏆 Winner of Contest #228

“That’s it petal, just push down a smidge more and it should cut right the way through it.” Mam’s standing above me as I’m trying to hack through the biggest potato the world’s ever seen. I’m sweating bullets at this point but she’s having none of it. “Can’t you just do it, Mam?” I’m absolutely knackered. I’ve been stabbing at this thing for (no joke) fifteen minutes but she just will not take...

“ The Winters of My Discontent ” by Warren Keen

🏆 Winner of Contest #227

I didn’t wake up on November 29th, 2023. The day prior I remember vividly. I drove two hours into western Minnesota to replace some fuses in a pad-mount transformer. Easy job when you bring the right fuses. I wasn’t prepared to stand outside in the freezing cold all day waiting for them. Waiting is the coldest thing you can do. I had checked the weather that morning, but I refused to acknowledge that it was lo...

“ Forthright Thursday ” by Chris Campbell

🏆 Winner of Contest #226

8:45PM Thanksgiving Day – GLOVES OFF: My mother, Mary, and her sister Alice were engaged in a wrestling match on the dining room table. Aloysius – my father - and Alice’s plus one; Jack, attempted to pry them apart, but both women had locked themselves into each other’s hair with vice-like grips, despite both their hands being splattered with custard trifle remnants. All I could do as an observing teenager was sit with mouth agape while holding my new Super 8mm silent movie camera, recording the whole scene. It was typical behavio...

“ The Day Alfred Googled Himself ” by Olivier Breuleux

🏆 Winner of Contest #225

Everyone has Googled themselves at one time or another in their lives. Even you, dear reader, I'll bet. Why did you do it? Curiosity? Validation? Finding your own LinkedIn profile? When Alfred did it, his reason was self-pity. He was nobody, he had nobody, and he had nothing. His immediate family had died years prior. His extended family did not remember he existed, nor did he remember the...

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Short Stories from Reedsy Prompts

Short stories may be small, but they are mighty! With the weight of a novel stripped away, great short stories strike directly at the heart of their topics. Often maligned as the novel’s poor cousin, the short story medium has produced some of the most beloved works of fiction. From the eerily-accurate predictions of Ray Bradbury to the spine-chilling thrills of Stephen King and the wildly imaginative worlds of N.K. Jemison, some of the best authors in the business have made their mark writing short stories .

Whether the stories are sweeping explorations of the human condition, or slices of life vignettes that move us to tears, short fiction has the power to dazzle from first word to last.

Who writes Reedsy’s short stories?

Here at Reedsy, we're looking to foster the next generation of beloved authors. To that end, we've been running a weekly writing contest for over six years — and these short stories are the thousands of entries we've received over that time. Our writers come to the contest from all experience levels to hone their skills through consistent practice and friendly feedback. Some of them have even gone on to write and publish novels based on their short story submissions !

Discover short stories of all genres and subjects

Centered around themed writing prompts, these short stories range across all forms, genres, and topics of interest. Simply filter by the genre that appeals you most, and discover thousands of stories from promising new writers around the world.

Maybe you want to read something new, but don’t want to choose a genre? We’ve gathered our favorite entries in our literary magazine, Prompted . Each issue is packed with prize-winning stories that have been introduced and edited by a guest editor. Grab a free copy of our first issue here . Who knows, you could even discover your next favorite author before they even hit the big time!

(And if you’re a writer, consider heading over and entering the short story contest yourself! You may just walk away with the weekly cash prize, plus the chance to appear in Prompted . )

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7 best places to read short stories online for free.

Looking for a quick read online? Below, you’ll find our favorite websites to read short stories on.

If you’re reading this post, high chances are you’ve been browsing through Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or Reddit for the past half an hour or so.

You’d probably like to do something more productive with your time – read a book, for example – but you just don’t have enough time on your hands to commit to a weighty 400-page novel.

But what if there’s another way?

The answer is simple: short stories . Short stories that can addict, engross, and absorb just like a novel can – but in the timespan of one morning commute or a relaxing bath.

And there are plenty of places to find high-quality quick reads online, often for free. Some websites even have iOS apps to read on, making the reading experience even easier.

Scroll down to find out which short story websites made the cut.

Why are short stories a great read?

Having not enough time to commit to reading a weighty tome is one of the major reasons why so many people ditch books.

But little do they know a well-written short story will make them feel the same thrill, experience the same attachment to the characters and spark as much love for reading as a normal book would.

You can read them whenever and wherever you want – on a commute back home from work, during an evening bath, in the waiting room at the dentist.

Need more reasons to reach for a short story? We’ve got a handy list with the  benefits of short stories .

7 best sites where you can read short stories

1. electric literature.

One of the most popular websites to read short stories on, Electric Literature is a nonprofit digital publisher focused on unveiling elevating new voices. Their interest lays primarily in writing that operates at the intersection of different cultures, genres, and media.

Everything published by Electric Literature is available to read online for free. However, as a small, independent non-profit, they strongly rely on the readers’ financial support, so donations are more than welcome.

There is also a ‘membership’ option – a recurring monthly donation of $4 or more. Members of Electric Literature get some special pros, such as monthly ebook samplings, a “Writing Well is the Best Revenge” tote bag, and more.

In addition to essays, criticism, and literary news, Electric Literature publishes one short story every Wednesday with a personal recommendation by selected top writers and editors.

A short story can be submitted by anyone through Submittable, as long as it meets specific criteria described on the website. It is later reviewed by Electric Literature editors and, if chosen, the author is paid and their work published. As of today, there are about 380 short stories on their website.

2. The New Yorker

The New Yorker has always played an integral role in the history of serious American fiction. Ever since the publication of “Short Stories from The New Yorker” in 1940, the magazine became one of the most renowned première venues for short fiction, having literary legends such as Nabokov, Murakami, Atwood, Salinger or Fitzgerald grace its pages.

Today, The New Yorker publishes only one story per issue, devoting one issue per year to new fiction. Stories can be sent by anyone using the magazine’s online submission form. While usually gravitating towards already established writers, The New Yorker sometimes takes a chance on fairly experimental ones.

Without a subscription, users can enjoy the home page, section pages, the video hub, Goings On About Town listings, and six full articles per month. They can also download the New Yorker Today app for free, and browse a couple of articles before asked to subscribe.

With a subscription, however, they are given unlimited access to the entirety of New Yorker ‘s content, such as:

▸ Unlimited browsing and access to articles on both the New Yorker website and The New Yorker Today iOS app (not just articles, but also cartoons, journalism, and much more)

▸ Flash fiction, podcasts, and short stories (often with a podcast of the author reading it aloud)

▸ Every issue of the magazine since its founding in 1925 in a digital-replica format at archives.newyorker.com (including all short stories)

▸ Every story published for the magazine since 2007 in standard Web format (including all short stories)

The pricing is surprisingly low, standing at $12 for 12 weeks of a Print and Digital subscription. As a welcome gift, new subscribers also receive a free tote bag.

3. Project Gutenberg

One of the most popular choices for free short stories online, Project Gutenberg is a digital library of over 60,000 free eBooks, available in both epub and Kindle eBooks formats.

Comprising primarily older works for which U.S. copyright has expired, Project Gutenberg has the biggest variety of book categories to choose from, including children’s literature, fiction, crime, specialized nonfiction, and many more.

The service also offers books in other languages, such as Chinese, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, and many more.

As a volunteer initiative, Project Gutenberg is 100% free and does not require registration or a subscription. The home page includes a link to a donation page, but it is not necessary to donate to access the website’s content.

4. Fictionaut

Fictionaut is a vibrant literary community designed specifically for short fiction and poetry. It is a friendly creative hub that enables users to discover new authors, publish their own works, get feedback and connect with others.

As a website still in development, Fictionaut is currently invite-only – meaning that only those who have received an invitation can log in, comment, and publish.

Non-members can, however, read all short stories and poetry for free – and there are over 15,000 works to choose from already.

Wattpad is an online community for readers and writers alike. With over 70 million members (including Margaret Atwood, Paulo Coelho, and R L Stine) and stories in 50 different languages, it is the most popular social storytelling platform on the Internet.

Some of the most popular short story categories include fiction, poetry, fan-fiction, spiritual, humor, and teen fiction.

To browse on the website, you have to create a free account. All the services – such as publishing own works, reading and commenting on other people’s work, the iOS app, and many others – are entirely free to use, since Wattpad earns money through advertising.

There is also a Premium plan that gives some special options such as exclusive theme colors or no ads, but it is not required to use the app in its fullest nor to promote Premium users’ content over others.

With over 565 million free stories available, there are plenty of content users can choose from. Anyone is welcome to publish their original work, but that does not equal bad writing.

On the contrary; Wattpad writers have proven to be extremely popular outside the site as well, with some getting deals from well-known publishing houses such as Random House and Harper Collins, and Beth Reekles’ short story The Kissing Booth being turned into an incredibly popular Netflix adaptation.

So if you’re an aspiring writer or a good-read-hungry book lover, you should definitely give Wattpad a go.

6. 3:AM Magazine

3:AM Magazine is a literary webzine created by Sorbonne lecturer Andrew Gallix. It features literary criticism, nonfiction essays, original fiction, poetry, and interviews with leading writers and philosophers.

Well-known for its “blunt, funny, and angrily academic” content, 3:AM focuses primarily on sharp and savvy avant-garde reads.

All content is entirely free to read, and it is not required to log in. Anyone can send a short story submission, but only some are selected by the editing team.

This beautifully designed website (and an equally sleek iOS app) was created for the users to upload excerpts of fictional works in progress or entire short stories to connect them with readers to provide feedback.

But most importantly, it is also a publishing house that selects authors to collaborate with through algorithms. “We analyze reader behavior, analyze their engagement,” Inkitt founder Ali Albazaz tells TechCrunch.

“If they start reading and stay up all night to continue reading, if they use every break during the day to continue reading your story, we look at this reader behavior to see if a book is good or not good”.

And the algorithm seems to work. To date, the company has published 24 books, of which 22 have become Amazon bestsellers.

As of today, the Inkitt community has 1.6 million readers, 110,000 writers, and some 350,000 stories.

Don’t stop exploring. Here are other popular lists to enjoy:

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• 12 best personalized gifts for librarians and library supporters These library-themed gifts are extremely easy to personalize. All you have to do is add your own text!
• Here are the 12 best iPhone case covers for book lovers In this updated overview, you’ll see gorgeous iPhone covers that will remind you of the joy of reading books anywhere, […]
• 12 best metal accessories and home decor for book lovers Explore some of the best home decor items for book lovers that are handmade from metal: steel, brass, copper, bolts, […]

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Big magic: creative living beyond fear.

by ELIZABETH GILBERT

Once upon a time, there was a man named Jack Gilbert, who was not related to me – unfortunately for me. 

Jack Gilbert was a great poet, but if you’ve never heard of him, don’t worry about it. It’s not your fault. He never much cared about being known. But I knew about him, and I loved him dearly from a respectful distance, so let me tell you about him.

Jack Gilbert was born in Pittsburgh in 1925 and grew up in the midst of that city’s smoke, noise, and industry. He worked in factories and steel mills as a young man, but was called from an early age to write poetry. He answered the call without hesitation. He became a poet the way other men become monks: as a devotional practice, as an act of love, and as a lifelong commitment to the search for grace and transcendence. I think this is probably a very good way to become a poet. Or to become anything, really, that calls to your heart and brings you to life.

176 words read ...

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Revolution Begins Book Lover Funny T-Shirt – Time to start a revolution, comrades! Wait, I need to finish the book, first – and a bookmark comes as a handy excuse. This vintage artwork says: “The revolution begins as soon as I remember where I left my bookmark”.

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What I’ve Learned From My Students’ College Essays

The genre is often maligned for being formulaic and melodramatic, but it’s more important than you think.

By Nell Freudenberger

Most high school seniors approach the college essay with dread. Either their upbringing hasn’t supplied them with several hundred words of adversity, or worse, they’re afraid that packaging the genuine trauma they’ve experienced is the only way to secure their future. The college counselor at the Brooklyn high school where I’m a writing tutor advises against trauma porn. “Keep it brief , ” she says, “and show how you rose above it.”

I started volunteering in New York City schools in my 20s, before I had kids of my own. At the time, I liked hanging out with teenagers, whom I sometimes had more interesting conversations with than I did my peers. Often I worked with students who spoke English as a second language or who used slang in their writing, and at first I was hung up on grammar. Should I correct any deviation from “standard English” to appeal to some Wizard of Oz behind the curtains of a college admissions office? Or should I encourage students to write the way they speak, in pursuit of an authentic voice, that most elusive of literary qualities?

In fact, I was missing the point. One of many lessons the students have taught me is to let the story dictate the voice of the essay. A few years ago, I worked with a boy who claimed to have nothing to write about. His life had been ordinary, he said; nothing had happened to him. I asked if he wanted to try writing about a family member, his favorite school subject, a summer job? He glanced at his phone, his posture and expression suggesting that he’d rather be anywhere but in front of a computer with me. “Hobbies?” I suggested, without much hope. He gave me a shy glance. “I like to box,” he said.

I’ve had this experience with reluctant writers again and again — when a topic clicks with a student, an essay can unfurl spontaneously. Of course the primary goal of a college essay is to help its author get an education that leads to a career. Changes in testing policies and financial aid have made applying to college more confusing than ever, but essays have remained basically the same. I would argue that they’re much more than an onerous task or rote exercise, and that unlike standardized tests they are infinitely variable and sometimes beautiful. College essays also provide an opportunity to learn precision, clarity and the process of working toward the truth through multiple revisions.

When a topic clicks with a student, an essay can unfurl spontaneously.

Even if writing doesn’t end up being fundamental to their future professions, students learn to choose language carefully and to be suspicious of the first words that come to mind. Especially now, as college students shoulder so much of the country’s ethical responsibility for war with their protest movement, essay writing teaches prospective students an increasingly urgent lesson: that choosing their own words over ready-made phrases is the only reliable way to ensure they’re thinking for themselves.

Teenagers are ideal writers for several reasons. They’re usually free of preconceptions about writing, and they tend not to use self-consciously ‘‘literary’’ language. They’re allergic to hypocrisy and are generally unfiltered: They overshare, ask personal questions and call you out for microaggressions as well as less egregious (but still mortifying) verbal errors, such as referring to weed as ‘‘pot.’’ Most important, they have yet to put down their best stories in a finished form.

I can imagine an essay taking a risk and distinguishing itself formally — a poem or a one-act play — but most kids use a more straightforward model: a hook followed by a narrative built around “small moments” that lead to a concluding lesson or aspiration for the future. I never get tired of working with students on these essays because each one is different, and the short, rigid form sometimes makes an emotional story even more powerful. Before I read Javier Zamora’s wrenching “Solito,” I worked with a student who had been transported by a coyote into the U.S. and was reunited with his mother in the parking lot of a big-box store. I don’t remember whether this essay focused on specific skills or coping mechanisms that he gained from his ordeal. I remember only the bliss of the parent-and-child reunion in that uninspiring setting. If I were making a case to an admissions officer, I would suggest that simply being able to convey that experience demonstrates the kind of resilience that any college should admire.

The essays that have stayed with me over the years don’t follow a pattern. There are some narratives on very predictable topics — living up to the expectations of immigrant parents, or suffering from depression in 2020 — that are moving because of the attention with which the student describes the experience. One girl determined to become an engineer while watching her father build furniture from scraps after work; a boy, grieving for his mother during lockdown, began taking pictures of the sky.

If, as Lorrie Moore said, “a short story is a love affair; a novel is a marriage,” what is a college essay? Every once in a while I sit down next to a student and start reading, and I have to suppress my excitement, because there on the Google Doc in front of me is a real writer’s voice. One of the first students I ever worked with wrote about falling in love with another girl in dance class, the absolute magic of watching her move and the terror in the conflict between her feelings and the instruction of her religious middle school. She made me think that college essays are less like love than limerence: one-sided, obsessive, idiosyncratic but profound, the first draft of the most personal story their writers will ever tell.

Nell Freudenberger’s novel “The Limits” was published by Knopf last month. She volunteers through the PEN America Writers in the Schools program.

7 Best Ways to Shorten an Essay

• Smodin Editorial Team
• Published: May 14, 2024

Are you removing a lot of words and paragraphs from your essay but still not seeing the word count budge? Whether you’re meeting a strict word count or refining your message, reducing your essay’s length without sacrificing content quality can be challenging.

Luckily, besides just aiming for the minimum word count, there are some pretty simple solutions, like using artificial intelligence, conducting thorough research, and trimming unnecessary words. But there’s more.

In this guide, we’ll unpack some practical tips to help you make your essay concise and impactful. Time to make every word count!

7 Best Ways To Shorten an Essay

Here’s a detailed breakdown of the best ways you can shorten your essay:

1. Use Artificial intelligence

When we talk about academic writing, artificial intelligence (AI) can be a game changer, especially when it comes to reducing the length of your essays.

Tools like Smodin can help make your content more concise while enhancing overall quality. AI can help you shorten your essay through the following methods:

• Automated rewriting : AI rewriting tools can reformulate existing content to make it more straightforward while maintaining the original meaning.
• Sentence simplification : Algorithms can analyze your sentences and suggest simpler alternatives, helping eliminate redundant information and reduce word count.
• Research assistance : Certain platforms have AI-powered research tools that allow you to quickly gather the most relevant information. This ensures that every word in your essay contributes to your argument without unnecessary fillers.
• Plagiarism check : Ensuring your essay is plagiarism-free is crucial. For example, Smodin’s plagiarism detection tools help you identify and replace copied content with original, concise expressions.
• Instant feedback : Receive real-time suggestions on how to streamline your text, focusing on the essentials to effectively communicate your message.
• Reference generation : Automatically generate and insert citations in the correct format, which helps save you time while maintaining the academic integrity of your essay and keeping it short.

2. Identify Unnecessary Words and Remove Them

One of the simplest yet most effective ways to shorten your essay is by identifying and eliminating unnecessary words.

This approach helps decrease word count and sharpens your arguments, making your writing more compelling. You can identify and remove extra words by doing the following:

• Spot wordy phrases : Often, phrases can be condensed without losing meaning. For example, the phrase “due to the fact that” can be replaced with “because.” Be on the lookout for wordy phrases that increase word count needlessly.
• Remove unnecessary prepositional phrases : Prepositional phrases can be redundant or add unnecessary detail. Evaluate whether these phrases add value or just extra words. Cutting them can make sentences more direct.
• Avoid redundancies : Redundant pairs like “absolutely essential” or “future plans” can be reduced to one word without losing informational value.
• Trim excess adjectives and adverbs : Adjectives and adverbs can make writing better but can also lead to over-description. Use them sparingly, especially when they don’t contribute additional meaning to the nouns and verbs they modify.
• Fewer words; more impact : Aim for brevity by using fewer words to express the same idea. This will help to reduce the word count while making your writing more impactful and clear.

3. Tighten Sentence Structure

Tightening your sentence structure is crucial for making your essay more concise and readable. Use active voice to make your writing clearer and more dynamic. This is especially important in academic writing, where you have to get to the point quickly.

In academic essays, shifting from passive voice to active voice can shorten and strengthen your sentences. For example, instead of writing, “The experiment was conducted by the students,” you can say, “The students conducted the experiment.” This reduces the number of words and places the action directly with the subject, making your sentences more direct.

Combining two separate sentences into one can streamline your ideas and reduce redundancies. Look for opportunities where sentences can be merged without losing their significance. For example, “He wrote the book. It became a bestseller.” can be rephrased as “He wrote the book, which became a bestseller.”

Also, avoid unnecessary qualifiers and modifiers that don’t add substantial information. Sentences often become bogged down with these extras, making them cluttered and long.

4. Conduct Thorough Research

When writing essays, extensive research can make the final output a lot shorter. Effective research helps you gather precise information that’s relevant to your topic. This means you’ll write more directly and avoid needless elaboration. Here’s how you can conduct research effectively:

• Define the scope of your research : Determine what information is essential to the argument. This initial step will help you focus your research efforts and prevent irrelevant data.
• Identify key sources : Begin with scholarly databases and academic journals that offer peer-reviewed articles. These sources provide credible, authoritative information that can be crucial for academic writing.
• Use precise keywords : When searching for information, use specific keywords related to your essay topic. Precision here will help find the most relevant articles and studies, reducing time spent on unnecessary reading.
• Evaluate sources : Assess the relevance and reliability of each source. Check the publication date to ensure the information is current and relevant to your topic.
• Take notes efficiently : As you research, jot down important points, quotes, and references. Organize these notes according to the sections in your essay to make writing faster.
• Synthesize information : Combine information from multiple sources to build a strong argument. This will allow you to write comprehensively and with fewer words, as each sentence carries more weight.

5. Improve Your Paragraph Structure

Streamlining paragraphs can make your essay shorter and more digestible for the reader. With a well-structured paragraph, you can focus on a single idea supported by concise statements.

Begin each paragraph with a topic sentence that clearly states the main idea. This sentence sets the direction and tone, letting the reader know what to expect. It also helps ensure that every following sentence relates directly to the main idea.

Condense supporting information by merging ideas that logically coexist within a single sentence or phrase. After that, evaluate each sentence for its contribution to the paragraph’s main idea. Remove any information that is repeated or goes into too much detail.

Focus on providing evidence and explanations that directly support the main point. You should also end each paragraph with a sentence that reinforces the main idea and potentially links to the next paragraph. This creates smooth transitions and keeps the essay focused and cohesive.

6. Refine the Introduction and Conclusion

These sections frame your essay and influence how your arguments are perceived. Here are some ways to keep them concise yet effective.

Introduction

The introduction should be engaging and concise, clearly stating the purpose and scope of your essay. Begin with a hook that grabs the reader’s attention, followed by background information that sets the context. Incorporate your thesis statement early on, ideally at the end of the intro.

The conclusion needs to reinforce the thesis. Summarize key points in the essay and show how they support the thesis. Provide a final thought that leaves the reader with something to ponder.

Also, remember to keep it tight – the conclusion isn’t a place for introducing new ideas. It should wrap up the ones you presented and prompt the reader to pose their own questions.

7. Edit and Proofread

Keep your essay concise and error-free by allocating ample time for editing and proofreading. These processes scrutinize your work at different levels, from the overall structure to word choices and punctuation. Here’s how you can go about it:

Start by reading through your entire paper to get a feel for its flow and coherence. Check if all paragraphs support your thesis statement and if section transitions are smooth. This will help you spot areas where the argument might be weak, or wording could be clearer.

Focus next on paragraph structure. Ensure each paragraph sticks to one main idea and that all sentences directly support the idea. Remove any repetitive or irrelevant sentences that don’t add value.

Then, look for clarity and style. Replace complex words with simpler alternatives to maintain readability. Keep your tone consistent throughout the paper. Adjust the sentence length and structure to enhance the flow and make it more engaging.

Proofreading

Proofreading comes after editing. The focus here is catching typing errors, grammatical mistakes, and inconsistent formatting. It’s always best to proofread with fresh eyes, so consider taking a break before this step.

Use tools like spell checkers, but don’t rely solely on them. Read your essay aloud or have someone else review it. Hearing the words can help you catch errors you may have missed.

Lastly, check for punctuation errors and ensure all citations and references are formatted according to the required academic style. This and all of the above are areas in which AI can help get the job done with speed and precision.

Why You Might Need to Shorten Your Essay

Ever heard the expression “less is more”? When it comes to academic writing, it normally is. Keeping your essays concise offers several benefits:

• Enhances clarity : A shorter essay forces you to focus on the main points and critical arguments, reducing the risk of going off-topic. This clarity makes your writing more impactful and easier for the reader to follow.
• Meets word limits : Many academic assignments have a maximum word count. Learning to express your thoughts concisely helps you stay within these limits without sacrificing essential content.
• Saves time : For both the writer and the reader, shorter essays take less time to write, revise, and read. This efficiency is especially valuable in academic settings where time is usually limited.
• Increases engagement : Readers are more likely to stay engaged with a document that gets to the point quickly. Lengthy texts can deter readers, especially if the content has unnecessary words or redundant points.
• Improves writing skills : Shortening essays helps refine your writing skills. You become better at identifying and eliminating fluff, focusing instead on what really adds value to your paper.

Overall, adopting a more succinct writing style helps you meet academic requirements and polish your communication skills.

Why Use Smodin To Shorten an Essay

Using AI-powered platforms like Smodin to shorten your essay is both the simplest and the least time-consuming method available. Here’s why you should probably make Smodin your go-to essay shortener:

• Efficiency : Smodin eases the editing process, using advanced algorithms to quickly identify areas where content can be condensed without losing meaning.
• Accuracy : With its powerful AI, Smodin ensures that the essence of your essays stays intact while getting rid of unnecessary words, making your writing more precise.
• Ease of use : Smodin is user-friendly, making it accessible even to those who aren’t the most tech-savvy. Its easy-to-grasp interface allows for seamless navigation and operation.

Smodin’s offerings

• Rewriter : Available in over 50 languages, this tool helps rewrite text to be more concise.
• Article Writer : Assists in drafting articles that are crisp and to the point.
• Plagiarism and Auto Citation : Ensures your essay is original and correctly cited, which is crucial in academic writing.
• Language Detection : Identifies the language of the text, ensuring the right adjustments are made for clarity.

All these tools and more are what make Smodin an excellent choice for academics looking to reduce the length of their essays.

Final Thoughts

Word counts can be a real headache, especially when you need to say a lot with a little. Thankfully, by identifying unnecessary words, tightening your sentences, and using tools like Smodin, you can make your essay concise without losing its meaning. Remember, a shorter essay doesn’t just meet word limits; and it’s clear, more compelling, and more likely to keep your reader engaged.

Keep it short, keep it sweet, and make every word count! Get started for free right now with Smodin.

Five Books That’ll Fit Right Into Your Busy Schedule

A s much as I love falling into a book and letting it consume an entire day, my free time doesn’t always arrive in uninterrupted stretches. Instead, it might be sprinkled throughout a hectic schedule: 10 minutes while I’m waiting at the doctor’s office, another 15 minutes riding the train, 30 minutes before falling asleep. These pockets of idle time could be spent scrolling on TikTok or answering emails, but I find that they are perfect for sneaking in reading—particularly short-story and essay collections, which you can enjoy in starts and stops.

Last month, I revisited the Pulitzer-winning volume Interpreter of Maladies , by Jhumpa Lahiri, and its intimate vignettes of the Indian diaspora. Lahiri’s short fiction focuses on characters, young and old, confronting the pangs of assimilation and alienation; each narrative conjures a rich and vivid world of its own. I decided that a concrete, achievable task would be tackling one story every night. They welcomed me in for a brief stay before releasing me to a dinner reservation, to my unfinished laundry, or to sleep. When reading starts to feel impossible, turn to books that you can work through at your own pace. These five titles can be consumed over days, weeks, or even months—ready for you whenever you want to dive back in.

Cooking as Though You Might Cook Again , by Danny Licht

In the time it takes to boil water for pasta, you can finish several of Licht’s delightful hybrid recipe-essays. The 78-page zine-like book encourages home cooks to view the task of preparing a meal not as a chore but as an act of emotional nourishment. Just as Licht prompts his readers to slow down and appreciate the process of assembling ingredients and letting them meld, his conversational language is best savored unhurriedly. The instructions for the simple Italian-ish dishes—a pot of beans, a creamy lemon risotto, pasta with braised chuck roast—cultivate an intuitive and meditative approach to putting food on the table. “Cooking does not need to be a race to the table, and it does not need to have an upper limit on what is possible or what is delicious or even what is beautiful,” Licht writes. “Instead, it can be a drama in parts, each act vital, and each giving way to the next. It can be like life itself.”

Cursed Bunny , by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur

Squeamish readers beware, because no one does body horror like Chung. Her frightening stories force you to sit in discomfort: A family seeks revenge on an unscrupulous businessman through a supernatural bunny lamp that destroys everything around it; a woman begins taking birth-control pills, but they fertilize a surreal, immaculate pregnancy, and she’s forced to look for a husband; a boy escapes Promethean torture at the hands of a monster, only to be further abused by the people who rescue him. For some, the subject matter may actually necessitate taking breaks. Thankfully, moving through the collection at a measured pace allows Hur’s straightforward translation—and the macabre scenarios that Chung creates—to feel fresh on every visit.

[ Read: You can read any of these short novels in a weekend ]

Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self , by Danielle Evans

Deliberately reading Evans’s 2010 debut allows the collection’s tenderness and warmth to wash over you the same way a conversation with an old friend does: Secrets are divulged, and old memories start to creep into the present. Her best stories—“Snakes,” “Virgins,” “Harvest,” and “Robert E. Lee Is Dead”—focus on the complicated and intense relationships between young women, many of whom are Black. Evans’s characters betray and uplift one another, sometimes simultaneously, and are infused with humor and generosity. Some of her plots deal with major coming-of-age milestones, like a first pregnancy or the end of high school. But in her deft hands, a night at the club or a summer with Grandma can also be a defining moment, one whose weight might not be realized until much later.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat , by Oliver Sacks

During his career as a neurologist, Sacks studied people with the most curious brain abnormalities, such as Dr. P., the titular man who could not accurately identify objects (or other humans). This collection of neurological case studies moves beyond clinical descriptions and focuses on the humanity of Sacks’s patients. The 24 essays are grouped by theme—“Losses,” “Excesses,” “Transports,” and “The World of the Simple”—but they don’t have to be read chronologically, as they are all discrete accounts. Sacks combines explanations of psychological theory, as well as snippets of dialogue between him and his subjects, to create nuanced portraits of people facing extreme medical challenges. What may be abnormal for much of the audience is normal for Sacks’s patients, and seeing through their eyes generates a renewed recognition of the tenacity of the human spirit—a feeling worth sitting with.

[ Read: The adults who treat reading like homework ]

Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories , by Hisaye Yamamoto

Yamamoto’s 1988 collection captures the dignity and disillusionment of the Japanese community in America during and after World War II. Together, the stories create a snapshot of a group during a transitory phase in the United States. But reading them separately, as singular narratives, allows for a greater appreciation of the ordinary people who lived through this sweeping and weighty moment in history. The title story, “Seventeen Syllables,” highlights how the realities of immigration—such as a language barrier and shifting cultural norms—contribute to the divide between a mother and a daughter. Despite being written in the second half of the 20th century, Yamamoto’s stories about anti-Asian racism, sexual harassment, and generational estrangement transcend their period; they could easily be transplanted to the current day, thanks to her ability to make the mess of daily life resonate across the decades.

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Read 20 Short Stories From Nobel Prize-Winning Writer Alice Munro (RIP) Free Online

in Literature | May 15th, 2024 1 Comment

Note : Back in 2013, when Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize in Lit­er­a­ture , we pub­lished a post fea­tur­ing 20 short sto­ries writ­ten by Munro. Today, with the sad news that Alice Munro has passed away , at the age of 92, we’re bring­ing the orig­i­nal post (from Octo­ber 10, 2013) back to the surface–in part because you can still read the 20 sto­ries free online. Please find the sto­ries at the bot­tom of this post.

Call­ing her a “mas­ter of the con­tem­po­rary short sto­ry,” the Swedish Acad­e­my award­ed 82-year-old Alice Munro the Nobel Prize in Lit­er­a­ture today. It is well-deserved, and hard-earned (and comes not long after she announced her retire­ment from fic­tion ). After 14 sto­ry col­lec­tions, Munro has reached at least a cou­ple gen­er­a­tions of writ­ers with her psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly sub­tle sto­ries about ordi­nary men and women in Huron Coun­ty, Ontario, her birth­place and home. Only the 13 th woman writer to win the Nobel , Munro has pre­vi­ous­ly won the Man Book­er Prize in 2009, the Gov­er­nor General’s Lit­er­ary Award for Fic­tion in Cana­da three times (1968, 1978, and 1986), and two O. Hen­ry Awards (2006 and 2008). Her region­al fic­tion draws as much from her Ontario sur­round­ings as does the work of the very best so-called “region­al” writ­ers, and cap­ti­vat­ing inter­ac­tions of char­ac­ter and land­scape tend to dri­ve her work more so than intri­cate plot­ting.

Of that region she loves, Munro has said: “It means some­thing to me that no oth­er coun­try can—no mat­ter how impor­tant his­tor­i­cal­ly that oth­er coun­try may be, how ‘beau­ti­ful,’ how live­ly and inter­est­ing. I am intox­i­cat­ed by this par­tic­u­lar land­scape… I speak the lan­guage.” The lan­guage she may have learned from the “brick hous­es, the falling-down barns, the trail­er parks, bur­den­some old church­es, Wal-Mart and Cana­di­an Tire.” But the short sto­ry form she learned from writ­ers like Car­son McCullers, Flan­nery O’Connor , and Eudo­ra Wel­ty. She names all three in a 2001 inter­view with The Atlantic , and also men­tions Chekhov and “a lot of writ­ers that I found in The New York­er in the fifties who wrote about the same type of mate­r­i­al I did—about emo­tions and places.”

Munro was no young lit­er­ary phenom—she did not achieve fame in her twen­ties with sto­ries in The New York­er . A moth­er of three chil­dren, she “learned to write in the sliv­ers of time she had.” She pub­lished her first col­lec­tion, Dance of the Hap­py Shades in 1968 at 37, an advanced age for writ­ers today, so many of whom have sev­er­al nov­els under their belts by their ear­ly thir­ties. Munro always meant to write a nov­el, many in fact, but “there was no way I could get that kind of time,” she said:

Why do I like to write short sto­ries? Well, I cer­tain­ly did­n’t intend to. I was going to write a nov­el. And still! I still come up with ideas for nov­els. And I even start nov­els. But some­thing hap­pens to them. They break up. I look at what I real­ly want to do with the mate­r­i­al, and it nev­er turns out to be a nov­el. But when I was younger, it was sim­ply a mat­ter of expe­di­en­cy. I had small chil­dren, I did­n’t have any help. Some of this was before the days of auto­mat­ic wash­ing machines, if you can actu­al­ly believe it. There was no way I could get that kind of time. I could­n’t look ahead and say, this is going to take me a year, because I thought every moment some­thing might hap­pen that would take all time away from me. So I wrote in bits and pieces with a lim­it­ed time expec­ta­tion. Per­haps I got used to think­ing of my mate­r­i­al in terms of things that worked that way. And then when I got a lit­tle more time, I start­ed writ­ing these odd­er sto­ries, which branch out a lot.

Whether Munro’s adher­ence to the short form has always been a mat­ter of expe­di­en­cy, or whether it’s just what her sto­ries need to be, hard­ly mat­ters to read­ers who love her work. She dis­cuss­es her “stum­bling” on short fic­tion in the inter­view above from 1990 with Rex Mur­phy. For a detailed sketch of Munro’s ear­ly life, see her won­der­ful 2011 bio­graph­i­cal essay “ Dear Life ” in The New York­er . And for those less famil­iar with Munro’s exquis­ite­ly craft­ed nar­ra­tives, we offer you below sev­er­al selec­tions of her work free online. Get to know this author who, The New York Times writes, “rev­o­lu­tion­ized the archi­tec­ture of short sto­ries.”

“Voic­es” - (2013, Tele­graph )

“ A Red Dress—1946 ” (2012–13, Nar­ra­tive —requires free sign-up)

“ Amund­sen ” (2012, The New York­er )

“ Train ” (2012, Harper’s )

“ To Reach Japan ” (2012, Nar­ra­tive —requires free sign-up)

“Axis” (2001, The New York­er — in audio)

“ Grav­el ” (2011, The New York­er )

“Fic­tion” (2009, Dai­ly Lit)

“ Deep Holes ” (2008, The New York­er )

“ Free Rad­i­cals ” (2008, The New York­er )

“ Face ” (2008, The New York­er )

“ Dimen­sion ” (2006, The New York­er )

“Wen­lock Edge” (2005, The New York­er )

“The View from Cas­tle Rock” (2005, The New York­er )

“ Pas­sion ” (2004, The New York­er )

“ Run­away ” (2003, The New York­er )

“Some Women” (2008, New York­er )

“ The Bear Came Over the Moun­tain ” (1999, The New York­er )

“Quee­nie” (1998, Lon­don Review of Books

“ Boys and Girls ” (1968)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

29 Free Short Sto­ries from Some of Today’s Most Acclaimed Writ­ers: Mar­garet Atwood, David Mitchell & More

Kurt Von­negut Offers 8 Tips on How to Write Good Short Sto­ries (and Amus­ing­ly Graphs the Shapes Those Sto­ries Can Take)

The Graveyard Book & Coraline , to Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven & Dickens’ A Christmas Carol " href="https://www.openculture.com/2019/02/hear-neil-gaiman-read-aloud-15-of-his-own-works.html" rel="bookmark">Hear Neil Gaiman Read Aloud 15 of His Own Works, and Works by 6 Oth­er Great Writ­ers: From The Grave­yard Book & Cora­line, to Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven & Dick­ens’ A Christ­mas Car­ol

Josh Jones  is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at  @jdmagness

by OC | Permalink | Comments (1) |

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Comments (1), 1 comment so far.

I re-vis­it her won­der­ful writ­ing often. Such a great body of work. Rex Mur­phy died recent­ly as well. Thanks for includ­ing their con­ver­sa­tion.

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Aspiring students who wrote content-rich university admission essays were more likely to end up with higher grades in their classes 1 .

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18 Great Short Stories You Can Read Free Online

Sarah Ullery

Sarah suffers from chronic sarcasm, and an unhealthy aversion to noise. She loves to read, and would like to do nothing else, but stupid real life makes her go to work. She lives in the middle of a cornfield and shares a house with two spoiled dogs and a ton of books.

View All posts by Sarah Ullery

As to where to find great stories, The New Yorker stories are generally best, but require a subscription if you read too many in a month. I also like Narrative Magazine , which will ask you for an email, but their stories are free too. Tor of course has some great free stuff, and you can find most of the classics through Gutenberg . The stories on this list that are not from any of these publications, I found through simple Google searches. If I’m interested in an author, but don’t necessarily want to read a whole book, I look to see if they have any short fiction available that I can read first.

From this list, my favorites are Zadie Smith and Italo Calvino’s stories. I’d never read Zadie Smith, but after loving “The Embassy of Cambodia” I started On Beauty  (a 500 page book) and I absolutely love it. Both stories satisfied a reading itch I needed scratched.

Here are a few of my favorite free short stories you can read online right now.

“ The Library of Babel ” by Jorge Luis Borges

The world is a library that contains all the books that have ever been written, but most of them are indecipherable. Many people venture to the library to find the meaning of life. It reminded me of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld library.

“Perhaps my old age and fearfulness deceive me, but I suspect that the human species — the unique species — is about to be extinguished, but the Library will endure: illuminated, solitary, infinite, perfectly motionless, equipped with precious volumes, useless, incorruptible, secret.”

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson

This used to be my favorite short story, and I might only think that because I read it when I was a freshman in high school and I remember being shocked by the ending. It’s always stayed with me.

“A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor

Another story with an ending that you won’t forget anytime soon. O’Connor was a master. If you’ve never read any of her work I would start here.

“In the Penal Colony” by Franz Kafka

It’s a chilling story. A man known as the Traveller is visiting a foreign penal colony where he is shown a special machine used to execute prisoners. The machine inscribes the prisoner’s crime onto their body until they die. It takes 12 hours of torture before the prisoner dies. I told you it was chilling!

“The Devil in America ” by Kai Ashante Wilson (Tor)

Kai Ashante Wilson has quite a talent. This ties present day police brutality towards African Americans to post-emancipation America and a family of freed slaves that are living with the Devil that followed them from Africa.

“The City Born Great” by N.K. Jemisin (Tor)

Cities, once they are old enough, must be born. New York City is ready to be born, and must be led into the world by a reluctant midwife.

“Spider the Artist” by Nnedi Okorafor (Lightspeed Magazine)

Okorafor is a wonderful storyteller, and if you’ve never read her books, this would be a great place to start. And if you like this short story, check out Binti: The Complete Trilogy .

“Exhalation” by Ted Chiang (Lightspeed Magazine)

Oh, you’ve never read Ted Chiang? Well, you must go out now and read this story and then read Stories of Your Life and Others  and his collection Exhalation: Stories . I was shocked by how good and complex his writing was. I had no idea that the movie The Arrival was based on one of his short stories.

“The Daughters of the Moon” by Italo Calvino (The New Yorker)

I don’t know. It’s either Zadie Smith’s “The Embassy of Cambodia” or this story that is my favorite on the list… I can’t decide. I think it’s this story. A story about the people of Earth deciding to throw away the Moon. It’s a story of consumerism. Luckily, I own The Complete Cosmicomics , so I can continue reading Calvino’s magnificent short story collection.

“The Embassy of Cambodia ” by Zadie Smith (The New Yorker)

After you read “The Devil in America” read this story and see if you can find the parallels. This was my first time reading Zadie Smith because I’d always heard mixed reviews, but if her longer fiction is anything like this short story, I’m in love. If you need help figuring out where to start with Zadie Smith’s books, check out our Reading Pathway guide to Zadie Smith .

“Sweetness” by Toni MOrrison (The New Yorker)

A prelude to Morrison’s book God Help the Child , this is the story of Bride’s mother, and her rationale for raising her daughter in a loveless home.

“Girls, At Play”  by Celeste Ng (Bellevue Literary Review)

“This is how we play the game: pink means kissing; red means tongue. Green means up your shirt; blue means down his pants. Purple means in your mouth. Black means all the way.”

The first four sentences of this short story sent chills down my spine. A superbly told story of the extremes of girlhood and adolescence; the pressures girls face as they get older.

“On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning” by Haruki Murakami (Genius)

Love at first sight, if you believe love is predestined rather than a choice. Fated love, to me, no matter how hard my heart becomes, still seems ridiculously romantic. I haven’t read Murakami in a long time but now I’m itching to pick up one of his books (I really want to read 1Q84 , but it’s soooo long!).

“Chechnya”  by Anthony Marra (Narrative Magazine)

This was Anthony Marra’s first published short story, and works as an outline for his novel A Constellation of Vital Phenomenon . It’s the kind of story you read while holding your breath.

“The Fruit of My Woman” by Han Kang (Granta)

This story was written in 1997 before the publication of The Vegetarian . The two stories share many of the same themes, and it’s evident that this story served as a blueprint for the later book. In “The Fruit of My Woman” the wife is slowly turning into a tree (something that also comes up in The Vegetarian ). The allusions to Daphne turning herself into a laurel tree to escape the advances of Apollo are hard to miss, but there’s no clear indication that Daphne was an actual influence on either story. Han Kang can do no wrong in my eyes.

“A Lady’s Maid” by Sarah Gailey (Barnes & Noble)

I love Sarah Gailey. This is a great introduction if you’re unfamiliar with her work. It’s Victorian London with androids — so much to love!

“A Bruise the Size and Shape of a Door Handle” by Daisy Johnson (American Short Fiction)

A hot and bothered story about a house falling in love with the girl who lives in the attic. I loved everything about this story. This is included in Johnson’s short story collection, Fen , and I can’t wait to get my hands on it. Also, the writing style reminded me of Samantha Hunt.

“Hollow” by Breece D’J Pancake (The Atlantic)

Breece D’J Pancake died when he was 26. He was from West Virginia, and I would label his writing “grit-lit”. This story was almost too gritty for me. He’s the kind of writer that other writers love. His short story collection has a blurb from Joyce Carol Oates.

Want more short stories? Check out our post on the 100 must-read contemporary short story collections , 20 must-read short stories on audio , and the best short stories of all time !

You Might Also Like

Watch CBS News

Officials change course amid outrage over bail terms for Indian teen accused in fatal drunk driving accident

By Arshad R. Zargar

May 22, 2024 / 1:37 PM EDT / CBS News

New Delhi — Indian justice officials have changed course amid outrage over the bail terms set for a teenager accused of killing two people while driving a Porsche at high speed while drunk and without a license. The 17-year-old son of a wealthy businessman had been ordered to write a 300-word essay and work with the local traffic police for 15 days to be granted bail — a decision that was made within 15 hours of his arrest.

He is accused of killing two young people while speeding in his luxury car on Sunday in the western Indian city of Pune.

The lenient bail conditions initially imposed by the local Juvenile Justice Board shocked many people, including officials, across India. The local police approached the board with an appeal to cancel his bail and seeking permission to treat the boy, who is just four months shy of his 18th birthday, as an adult, arguing that his alleged crime was heinous in nature.

In 2015, India changed its laws to allow minors between 16 and 18 years of age to be tried as adults if they're accused of crimes deemed heinous. The change was prompted by the notorious 2012  Delhi rape case , in which one of the convicts was a minor. Many activists argued that if he was old enough to commit a brutal rape, he should not be treated as a minor.

On Wednesday night, after three days of outrage over the initial decision, the Juvenile Justice Board canceled the teen's bail and sent him to a juvenile detention center until June 5. It said a decision on whether he could be tried as an adult, which would see him face a more serious potential sentence, would be taken after further investigation.

Late Sunday night, police say the teen, after drinking with friends at two local bars in Pune, left in his Porsche Taycan, speeding through narrow roads and allegedly hitting a motorcycle, sending the two victims — a male and female, both 24-year-old software engineers — flying into the air and killing them.

The parents of both victims have urged authorities to ensure a strict punishment for the teen.

The suspect was first charged with causing death by negligence, but that was changed to a more serious charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder. On Wednesday he was also charged with drunk driving offenses.

Police have arrested the suspect's father and accused him of allowing his son to drive despite being underage, according to Pune Police Commissioner Amitesh Kumar. The legal age for driving in India is 18. Owners of the two bars where the minor was served alcohol have also been arrested and their premises seized.

"We have adopted the most stringent possible approach, and we shall do whatever is at our command to ensure that the two young lives that were lost get justice, and the accused gets duly punished," Kumar said.

Maharashtra state's Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had described the original decision of the Juvenile Justice Board as "lenient" and "shocking," and called the public outrage a reasonable reaction.

Road accidents claimed more than 168,000 lives in India in 2022. More than 1,500 of those people died in accidents caused by drunk driving, according to Indian government data.

Under Indian law, a person convicted of drunk driving can face a maximum punishment of six months in prison and a fine of about $120 for a first offense. If, however, the drunk driving leads to the death of another person, the offender can face two to seven years in prison.

• Deadly Crash
• Deadly Hit And Run
• Drunk Driving

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