Page 2 | Harper's Magazine

Authorship

Regarding the Pen of Others

By Benjamin Moser, from Sontag: Her Life and Work, which will be published by Ecco this month. “In the Freudian conception,” wrote one author, “as it gradually emerged through these…

Whisperings

by David Means,

A writer alone with the work

Good Plain English

by Nat Segnit,

The problem with writing manuals

I Began the Day

by Renee Gladman,

By Renee Gladman, from Calamities, a collection of linked essays that was published this month by Wave Books. Gladman is the author of eight works of prose, including the novel…

No-Name Calling

by J.D. McClatchy,

By J. D. McClatchy, from Sweet Theft, which was published in April by Counterpoint Press. The book collects notes and quotations compiled by the poet over three decades. McClatchy is…

The Grand Shattering

by Sarah Manguso,

I never wanted to be a mother. I wanted to be a person. My identity crisis began at age three, when I wanted to be Popeye but realized that I…

The Torment and the Engine

by Elena Ferrante,

From an interview in the Spring 2015 issue of The Paris Review. Elena Ferrante is the pseudonym of an Italian novelist whose books include The Days of Abandonment, My Brilliant…

Ways of Being Silent

by Tillie Olsen,

from the archive 50 years ago in Harper’s Magazine Literary history and the present are dark with silences: the years-long silences of acknowledged greats; the ceasing to publish after one…

Keeping Time

by Sarah Manguso,

By Sarah Manguso, from Ongoingness: The End of a Diary, out in March from Graywolf Press. Manguso is the author of several books, including The Guardians and The Two Kinds…

Spare the Darling

by John Crowley,

Though I have been hearing (or rather reading) it a lot lately in many venues, it was a little odd — even a bit unsettling — to read it in the New…

The Operative’s Words

From the CIA’s 2011 style guide, recently acquired by the National Security Counselors, a legal nonprofit, following a Freedom of Information Act request.