Selected Prose

Afterword Essay for 75th anniversary issue of Chicago Review

Abasement, in The Map Is Not the Territory, reprinted in Best American Essays 2022, ed. Alexander Chee

Fish, Pole: On Thinking What to Do, in Grand

The Year in Letters, in Tin House

Coming Up with Guy Davenport,” in The Oxford American

Differences from Yesterday, a Day Like Today, in Essay Daily


from Proxies

On the Near Term, in Full Stop

On the Leave, in Oar

On the Understory, in The Offing

On the Ingenue, in StoryQuarterly

On Dossiers, in BOMB

On Frottage, in Harper’s Magazine

On Reset, at PEN/America

On Minutes, in Brick

On Withdrawal, in NoMorePotlucks

On Tumbleweed, in Guernica

On Containment, in Guernica

On Housesitting, in Guernica

On Propositionizing, in Conjunctions

On Br’er Rabbit, in Conjunctions

On The Locus Amoenus, in Seneca Review

On Foot Washing, in Seneca Review

On Man Roulette, in Seneca Review

On Sardines, in Or

On Completism, in Or

On Owls, in Or