Essay Daily (back for 2025)

over at @essaydaily.bsky.social we’re gearing up for our annual Advent Calendar (the only time of year we actually post daily); send us yer stuff if you want to join in the advent adventures!

Rethinking Pornhub’s Role in the Literary Zeitgeist by Andrew Maynard Rethinking Pornhub’s Role in the Literary Zeitgeist  * Andrew Maynard * “Is it like the old Playboy magazine; you have essays there by the m...

"When the internet told me what Justice Alito had said, my first response was What’s a Gore Vidal?"

@andrew-maynard.bsky.social on Pornhub, Gore Vidal, and other Epsteins

www.essaydaily.org/2025/10/reth...

The Deer Out Here: Matt Morris in Conversation with Hea-Ream Lee * The writer Matthew Morris was sitting at my kitchen table in Tucson, Arizona. He was in town to promote his new book of essays, The Tilli...

"the longer I write, the more interested I am in riffing and being kind of spontaneous": Matthew Morris in conversation with Hea-Ream Lee:

www.essaydaily.org/2025/09/the-...

TUCSON ESSAY ALERT

Bea Troxel, Song of Return Song of Return Bea Troxel Holding a tiny wine cup inside of a drab, gray conference room inside of a convention center in the middle of Los ...

"I’ve left nearly every person I’ve dated. I’m not just someone who leaves, but I am someone who feels compelled to leave. I feel it deep in my body." @beatroxel.bsky.social on leaving, returning, collecting, and The Free Table in Tucson:

www.essaydaily.org/2025/08/bea-...

For @essaydaily.bsky.social I wrote about the power of flash as feminist reclamation, Jamaica Kincaid’s genre-blurring “Girl,” and writing my flash collection ABBREVIATE.

www.essaydaily.org/2025/06/sara...

new @essaydaily.bsky.social piece from @sfmontgomery.bsky.social on Kincaid’s “Girl” and the flash essay www.essaydaily.org/2025/06/sarah-fawn-montgomery-though-she-be-but.html?m=1

Read @sfmontgomery.bsky.social in @essaydaily.bsky.social on her new flash collection ABBREVIATE and on flash CNF in general: "an essay does not have to be big in order to be expansive"

Our 2025 Community Anthologies are now open for submissions - Seventh Wave Submit to one of our five 2025 Community Anthologies: On Separation, On Liminality, On Girlhood, On Collapse, and On Repetition.

Submission opportunity for essayists (deadline 7/27): theseventhwave.org/announcement...

Fine, @leahmensch.bsky.social: tucsonessayclub.org/product/i-to...

Tucson Essay Club (@tucsonessayclub) Excerpt from Katherine Larson’s excellent new book The Wedding of the Foxes, and an interview with her. Book release 8/3/25 + social to follow.

An interview with Tucson essayist and poet Katherine Larson and an excerpt from her new book The Wedding of the Foxes: substack.com/profile/3663...

Tucsonans consider signing up for the free or paid options with @tucsonessayclub.bsky.social to keep in touch? This is a great essay by Katherine Larson. Pick up her new book Wedding of the Foxes too now from @milkweededitions.bsky.social

"We want affirmation but dislike the people we become to get it. We doubt it when it’s real and clutch it closest when it’s fake." Just read this good essay by Thomas Dai in @yalereview.bsky.social from a couple years ago: yalereview.org/article/thom.... If you like this his first book just dropped!

nice

"there’s a typical narrative arc for a lot of grief books that I resisted and don’t believe in": @madnor.bsky.social and Matthew Morris in conversation at @essaydaily.bsky.social: www.essaydaily.org/2025/01/this...

Dec 21: Patrick Madden, Enough (on tense, timing, recreation, evocation, and eternal happening) * This is part of our yearly Advent Calendar, which publishes an essay a day each year during advent.  Find the rest of this year's and pr...

"I mean, besides the tedium of such a futile exercise, there's the inevitability of missing something or losing count and guessing or having to go back to the beginning and start again."

Love to see @pcmadden3.bsky.social at @essaydaily.bsky.social.

www.essaydaily.org/2024/12/dec-...

CATS

Dec 21: Patrick Madden, Enough (on tense, timing, recreation, evocation, and eternal happening) * This is part of our yearly Advent Calendar, which publishes an essay a day each year during advent.  Find the rest of this year's and pr...

My newest essay, “Enough,” on @essaydaily.bsky.social’s Advent Calendar: www.essaydaily.org/2024/12/dec-...

Dec 23: Lydia Paar, Plurinity * This is part of our yearly Advent Calendar, which publishes an essay a day each year during advent.  Find the rest of this year's and prev...

"The only response you hear is a distant groaning, a giant media machine rising slowly to full height…The pile purports to know the right answers about damn near every human question."

Lydia Paar, Dec 23 @essaydaily.bsky.social:

www.essaydaily.org/2024/12/dec-...

"On this first visit to my country my children have a tiny window into my past and it’s about to close…. How then do I bring them in?" Noam Dorr, Dec 20 @essaydaily.bsky.social: www.essaydaily.org/2024/12/dec-...

"the act of reading revives the things written, happens them again." Dec 21 is the traditional date for @pcmadden3.bsky.social to join the @essaydaily.bsky.social Advent Calendar, and he delivers: www.essaydaily.org/2024/12/dec-...

A black cat precariously balanced atop a white folding closet door.

Every time we open the front closet it's like a beacon goes up, alerting him that the opportunity to climb the slatted doors and trap himself at the top has arrived. He can't get down by himself, yet will bite those who attempt to help him.

Dec 19: Jason Sepac, Becoming Nostalgia * This is part of our yearly Advent Calendar, which publishes an essay a day each year during advent.  Find the rest of this year's and prev...

I wrote an essay on becoming nostalgia, dressing funny, and buying old shit on eBay to make me feel better. Thanks to @essaydaily.bsky.social and @angermonsoon.bsky.social for the chance to share!

www.essaydaily.org/2024/12/dec-...

Dec 19: Jason Sepac, Becoming Nostalgia * This is part of our yearly Advent Calendar, which publishes an essay a day each year during advent.  Find the rest of this year's and prev...

“By the time our senses reach our brains, we’re already perceiving the past. So we’re left trying to reconcile our forward moving bodies with our backwards looking minds.”

🚨🚨🚨 @jasonsepac.bsky.social on ‘00s nostalgia for @essaydaily.bsky.social advent!!!!!!!! www.essaydaily.org/2024/12/dec-...

YouTube video by Warner Records ICE T - O.G. Original Gangster (Official Music Video) | Warner Records

here you go: www.youtube.com/watch?v=scIL...

original gangster!

Dec 18: Steven Church, Signs of Something Else (in conversation with Lia Purpura’s essay, “Sugar Eggs: a Reverie”) * This is part of our yearly Advent Calendar, which publishes an essay a day each year during advent.  Find the rest of this year's and prev...

ruminations on safety signs, sugar eggs, and standees. Many thanks to @essaydaily.bsky.social and @angermonsoon.bsky.social for inviting me to the annual Advent Party. www.essaydaily.org/2024/12/dec-...

An essay on Mick Foley? Merry Christmas to me.

"So I did what poorly aged 90s movies taught me you do in the face of aging: I bought some dumb shit."

12/19 in the @essaydaily.bsky.social advent calendar is @jasonsepac.bsky.social on becoming nostalgia: www.essaydaily.org/2024/12/dec-...

Always nice to see the OG of short essay magazines give some love to the new blood!