Memoir & Essays
True stories, essays and poetry from new voices, and the choices it took to tell them.
How One Book Club Turned a Self-Published Memoir Into a Regional Bestseller
Delia Montrose printed 300 copies of What the River Kept, a memoir about retracing her late father's route down the Mississippi. Fourteen readers in Alton, Illinois, made sure it didn't stop there.
By Marcus Bell · 4 min read
Delia Montrose on Writing About Her Father Without Writing Him Off
Before What the River Kept went to print, Delia Montrose drove a manuscript to her uncle's house and waited while he read it. Her rules for memoir start there.
Hannah Birch Walked 900 Miles of Field Margins to Write Fieldwork
A former agricultural surveyor spent 97 days walking the edges of farms in England and Wales. Her linked essays are about the strips of land most people never look at twice.
Grief, Birdsong and the Sonnet. Tomasz Wren's Debut Is a Winter Worth Staying In
Written outside a hospital window over one Milwaukee winter, A Grammar of Small Birds is a collection about fear that never mistakes itself for despair.
Poet Tomasz Wren Kept 212 Drafts of a Single Sonnet. We Read Every One
The fourteen lines that close A Grammar of Small Birds took a full winter and 212 attempts. The drafts show a poet learning, one word at a time, what the poem was actually about.
Latest in Memoir & Essays
What Debut Authors Can Learn From the Books That Almost Went Unpublished
Four famous books were turned down again and again before they found the right door. Their histories offer debut authors something more useful than comfort.
By Elena Voss · September 22, 2026 · 4 min read
The Independent Shops Putting Debut Authors in the Front Window
In Durham, Burlington, and Astoria, three independent bookstores have made a habit of betting their best display space on first books. Their booksellers explain why, and what new authors should know before walking in the door.
By Julian Hart · September 26, 2026 · 4 min read
Read the Opening Pages of Five Fall Debuts
A flooded kitchen, a letter from a dead crew, a swarm that picks the wrong girl. Here are the first pages of five new books worth your evenings this season.
By Noor Haddad · September 25, 2026 · 6 min readMemoir, Essays and Poetry on the Shelf
See AllFirst Pages, Every Sunday
The opening page of a new debut, delivered to your inbox once a week.