Meghan O'Rourke
Writer and poet | Editor of The Yale Review | Professor of Creative Writing at Yale | playing with a Substack about writing
Most recent book: THE INVISIBLE KINGDOM: REIMAGINING CHRONIC ILLNESS, which was a finalist for the nonfiction National Book Award.
- One horrific thing about reading the Epstein files and the aftermath is not just the abuse, but the tone and scope: powerful men insisting on their own injury or blamelessness while propping up a system that treats women as collateral. This isn’t aberration but an intact culture.
- A must watch. (And Shakespeare, my god: "Your mountainish inhumanity" is the perfect phrase.)
- At about 22m in, Ian McKellan brings the Colbert studio to a total, rapt standstill with this speech, written by Shakespeare 400 years ago, of Thomas More to Londoners rioting over recent immigrants to remember themselves and welcome others. youtu.be/2l2RqzVG4ag?...
- We need to reinvigorate books coverage in this country; the WaPo news is a very sad new development. But there is already a shrinking coverage in newspapers and magazines, and a real need to reimagine how we talk about and write about books
- I wrote a new Substack about endings. It began as a craft talk but became something a bit broader — a way of thinking about why endings are so hard, and what they actually do. If you struggle with endings (don’t we all!) you might enjoy it: meghanorourke.substack.com/p/what-endin...
