The Best American Essays 2016 Part 16

MASON STOKES is a professor of English at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, where he teaches courses on African-American literature and queer fiction. He has published widely on race and s.e.xuality in American culture and is also the author of Saving Julian: A Novel.

THOMAS CHATTERTON WILLIAMS is the author of a memoir, Losing My Cool, and has written for The New York Times, Harper's Magazine, Smithsonian Journeys, London Review of Books, The New Yorker, and many other publications. His next book, a reckoning with how we define race in America, will expand his essay "Black and Blue and Blond," published last year in The Virginia Quarterly Review. He lives in Paris, where he is an a.s.sociate editor at Holiday and Purple Fas.h.i.+on Magazine and a regular book critic for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Notable Essays and Literary Nonfiction of 2015.

Selected by Robert Atwan.

Raymond Abbott.

Seymour Krim, Oyez Review, Spring Sufiya Abdur-Rahman Surrender at the Cinema, Ummah Wide, February 15 Hannah Dela Cruz Abrams.

Dog and Wolf: The Time Between, Southern Humanities Review, vol. 48, no. 3 Steve Adams Border Crossing, Grist, no. 8.

Tamara Adelman Rustic Canyon, Rubbertop Review, no. 7 Marcia Aldrich The Blue Dress, Hotel Amerika, Winter Tariq al Haydar Machine Language, Crab Orchard Review, Summer/Fall Cynthia Allen When the Walls Came Down, So to Speak, Fall Lauren Alwan Eldorado, ZYZZYVA, Winter Zay Amsbury Immersive Theater, New York: A Report from the Field, The Labletter, no. 17 Kate Angus My Catalog of Failures, The Southeast Review, vol. 33, no. 1 Kwame Anthony Appiah Race in the Modern World, Foreign Affairs, March/April Aaron Apps The Formation of This Grotesque Fatty Figure, Pa.s.sages North, no. 36 Amye Archer Slow Motion, PMS, no. 14.

Chris Arthur Memory Sticks, The Literary Review, Spring Gla.s.s, Tahoma Literary Review, vol. 2, no. 2 Rilla Askew Trail, This Land, Spring.

Howard Axelrod Into the Blind Spot, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter Matthew James Babc.o.c.k Boogaloo Too, Small Print Magazine, Spring/Summer C. Morgan Babst Death Is a Way to Be, Guernica, June 15 Julianna Baggott A Portrait of My Father Mapping a Plane Crash, The Cincinnati Review, Summer Ronald Bailey Eternal Youth for All, Reason, March Sarah E. Baker Every Western Is a Ghost Story, Ninth Letter, Spring/Summer Poe Ballantine No Talking to Imaginary People, The Sun, October Russell Banks.

Last Days Feeding Frenzy, Conjunctions, no. 64 Barret Baumgart The Mountain, The Gettysburg Review, Autumn Elizabeth Benedict What We Talk About When We Talk About Money, Salmagundi, Winter/Spring Geoffrey Bent.

John Singer Sargent: The Great Good Painter, Boulevard, Fall Stephen Benz A Grave on the High Plain, River Teeth, Fall Laurel Berger The Magic of Untidiness, The Point, September 23 Emily Bernard Black Is the Body, Creative Nonfiction, Spring Sven Birkerts Double Take, Agni, no. 82 Eula Biss White Debt, The New York Times Magazine, December 6 Mary Clearman Blew What My Hands Know, The Gettysburg Review, Summer Paul Bloom The Lure of Luxury, Boston Review, November/December Will Blythe Five Encounters with Vegetation, Oxford American, Summer Ken Bode Settling Scores: Revenge Louisiana Style, The Antioch Review, Winter Kyle Boelte Reluctant Citizens: A Juror's Education, ZYZZYVA, Spring/Summer Belle Boggs Baby Fever, Orion, November/December Leslie Bohem.

What Everybody Wants, Parcel, Summer Benedicte Boisseron Afro-Dog, Transition, no. 118 Marc Bookman "That's What That N-- Deserved," Mother Jones, March 24 Katie Booth.

The Sign for This, Vela, June 29 Robert Boucheron Redbud Lane, MAKE, no. 16 Nina Boutsikaris I'm Trying to Tell You I'm Sorry, Redivider, vol. 13, no. 1 Chandra A. Bozelko The Right to Read, Quartz, August 13 Mich.e.l.le Bracken Eating Together, Baltimore Review, Winter Diane Bracuk Doughnut Eaters, Prism, Spring Gayle Brandeis IceTown, Sport Literate, vol. 9, no. 1 Michael Brandow Don't Buy This Dog, The Village Voice, December 915 Anne Brannen Agents of Death, Creative Nonfiction, Fall Blair Braverman Welcome to Dog World! The Atavist Magazine, June Molly Brodak Bandit, Granta, no. 132 Taffy Brodesser-Akner Turbulent Calm, Good, Spring Mike Broida Odysseus at Teleyplos, The Rumpus, November 18 Victor Brombert Between Two Worlds, The Hudson Review, Autumn Nick Bromell Dignity: A Word for Democracy, Raritan, Summer David Bromwich Trapped in the Virtual Cla.s.sroom, The New York Review of Books, July 9 Victoria Brown Nice Girl and Small Man, Apogee, no. 6 Robert S. Brunk We Shall All Be Forgotten, North Dakota Quarterly, vol. 80, no. 3 Lucy Bryan In Between Places, Quarterly West, October 29 Christopher Buckley The Ontology of Hermeneutics, Catamaran, Spring Frank Bures Beyond Belief, The Rotarian, August Rose Burke Thirteen Stages of Grief, The Southampton Review, Summer/Fall Amy Butcher A Slow Kind of Unraveling, Gulf Coast, Winter/Spring David Byrne A Matter of the Skies, Boston Review, January/February Mich.e.l.le Cacho-Negrete First Husband, North American Review, Summer Garnette Cadogan Black and Blue, Freeman's, no. 1 Pablo Calvi Secret Reserves, The Believer, Fall Shannon Michael Cane Xerox, Paper, Scissors, Aperture, Spring Kelly Grey Carlisle Permutations of X, New England Review, vol. 35, no. 4 Tom Carson Clans of the Cathode, The Baffler, no. 29 Liane Kupperberg Carter A Room of My Own, Manifest-Station, October 28 Doug Paul Case On Locker Rooms and Looking, December, Spring/Summer Christopher Chambers Amplifier, The Southern Review, Summer J'Lyn Chapman The Good Beast, Denver Quarterly, vol. 49, no. 3 Wynn Chapman The War of the Ashes, Blackbird, Fall Julie Chinitz Sleepless Nights with Khaled El-Masri, Confrontation, Fall Roohi Choudhry On Island, The b.u.t.ter, March 2 Jill Christman Going Back to Plum Island, River Teeth, Fall Amy Clark The Rocks, The Chattahoochee Review, Spring Susannah Clark Signs (2002), Under the Gum Tree, April Ta-Nehisi Coates Letter to My Son, The Atlantic, September Alexis Coe Dispatches from the Russian River: Locked and Loaded, Pacific Standard, May 1 Judith Ortiz Cofer Display Only, Hotel Amerika, Winter Andrew D. Cohen To the Old Country, Michigan Quarterly Review, Winter Helen Degen Cohen The Sin of Ch.o.r.eography, West Branch, Winter Paula Marantz Cohen On Granite Countertops and Wolf Ovens, The Southwest Review, vol. 100, no. 1 Charisse Coleman The Cafe Book, Water-Stone Review, no. 18 Philip Connors Confirmation, n+1, Spring Julia Cooke The Art of Partic.i.p.ation, A Public s.p.a.ce, no. 22 Beth Cooley Colleville-Montgomery, Mid-American Review, vol. 36, no. 1 Bernard Cooper The Uses of the Ghoulish, Story Quarterly, no. 48 Bonnie Costello The English-Speaking Union, The Southern Review, Autumn Lisa Fay Coutley Why to Run Racks, Prairie Schooner, Winter Abigail Covington When the Fire Broke Out, Oxford American, no. 91 Paul Crenshaw Cold, The Southwest Review, vol. 100, no. 2 Matt Crossman The Last #Tweet, Charlotte, November John Crowley On Not Being Well Read, Harper's Magazine, March Hal Crowther Terminal Depression: Is It Just Me? Narrative, Fall Christine Cusick A Call to Tea, New Hibernia Review, Winter Jim Dameron A Eulogy for the Living, Agni, no. 81 J. D. Daniels Letter from the Primal Horde, Paris Review, Spring Renee E. D'Aoust The Line of No Trees, Ragazine, November Dawn S. Davies King of the World, The Missouri Review, Winter Carol Ann Davis Eva Hesse Material: A Memoir, American Poetry Review, November/December Rod Davis Her Dark Places, D Magazine, October Patrick Deeley The Hurley-Maker's Son, New Hibernia Review, Spring Brent DeLanoy Airhead, The Missouri Review, Spring Tammy DeLatorre Diving Lessons, Slippery Elm, 2015 Mensah Demary This Is How You Become an Editor, Catapult, September 24 Timothy Denevi Pigs, Sea, The Normal School, vol. 8, no. 1 Wiliam Deresiewicz The Death of the Artist and the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur, The Atlantic, January/February Elizabeth Evitts d.i.c.kinson Notes from a Suicide, Post Road, no. 29 Laura Michele Diener The Ash Tree, Lake Effect, no. 19 Laura S. Distelheim Nocturne in the Key of We, Hunger Mountain, no. 19 Sharon Dolin The Man Who Knew Too Much and the Girl Who Knew Too Little, Five Points, vol. 17, no. 1 Kristin Dombek Going South, Epiphany, Summer Matt Donovan Garden of the Fugitives, The Kenyon Review, March/April Noam Dorr Love Drones, Gulf Coast, Winter/Spring David Downie Glasnost and Wedding Bells, Chicago Quarterly Review, no. 21 Brian Doyle Sensualiterature, Creative Nonfiction, Winter Lindey Drager To Possess Is to Extinguish: A Gothic Essay, Copper Nickel, no. 21 Laurence Dumortier The Best Time I Lost My Virginity in the Catacombs of Paris, The Hairpin, June 15 Katherine Dykstra Siena, The Common, October 20 Gwendolyn Edward The Business of Bodies, Cleaver Magazine, no. 12 Chase Edwards Roundabout the Rat Cage, Yema.s.see, Spring Dave Eggers Nowhere Near Reykjavik, Fifth Wednesday, Fall Barbara Ehrenreich Mind Your Own Business, The Baffler, no. 27 Gretel Ehrlich Rotten Ice, Harper's Magazine, April Sue Eisenfeld Wild Feast, Little Patuxent Review, Winter Gena Ellett The Back Roads, Event, vol. 44, no. 3 David Emblidge Asleep in the Cottage, The Southwest Review, vol. 100, no. 4 Anjali Enjeti Borderline, Prime Number, October Joseph Epstein Whatever Happened to High Culture, The Weekly Standard, November 9 Pamela Erens Crave, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Spring Melissa Faliveno Driftless, Midwestern Gothic, Fall Laura Farrell Things Blur, OC87 Recovery Diaries, February 18 Steve Featherstone Destiny, USA, n+1, Winter Micah Fields How to Write a War Poem, Hayden's Ferry Review, Fall/Winter Gary Fincke Proximity, December, Spring/Summer Caitlin Flanagan That's Not Funny, The Atlantic, September Daisy Florin Crash, Under the Gum Tree, July Paul Ford Code: An Essay, Bloomberg Businessweek, June 15 Soyini Ayanna Forde Teet', Cleaver Magazine, no. 12 Robert Long Foreman Why I Write Nonfiction, Copper Nickel, no. 20 Patricia Foster The Lost Years, Colorado Review, Spring Matthew Gavin Frank Gra.s.shopper Diptych, Midwestern Gothic, Fall Joey Franklin The Full Montaigne, Ninth Letter, Fall/Winter Jonathan Franzen Carbon Capture, The New Yorker, April 6 Ian Frazier The Syrian Woman, Portland, Winter Steve Friedman My Sister, the Runner? Runner's World, January/February Rebekah Frumkin Atypical, Catapult, December 11 Andrew Furman Starting from Seed, The Southern Review, Spring Brendan Galvin A Few Thousand Walks by the Little Pamet River: One Poet's Geography, Sewanee Review, Summer J. Malcolm Garcia The Feral Children of Kabul, Tampa Review, no. 50 Kenneth Garcia Cattle, Casinos, and Cathouses, The Southwest Review, vol. 100, no. 2 Emily Geminder Coming To: A Lexicology of Fainting, Prairie Schooner, Summer Elizabeth Gentry The Possum, the Wren, and My Animal-Soul, Third Coast, Fall Philip Gerard Sherman's Final March, Our State, February David Gessner The Prankster and the Professor, Tin House, no. 64 Ethan Gilsdorf The Day My Mother Became a Stranger, Boston Magazine, May D. Gilson Michael Jackson & Michel Foucault Walk into a Bar, The Threepenny Review, Fall Amanda Giracca The Art of Butchery, Aeon, April 24 William Giraldi Object Lesson, The New Republic, May Amy Glynn Apple, Literal Latte, Spring Flora Gonzalez The Sewing Room, Solstice, Summer Adam Gopnik The Driver's Seat, The New Yorker, February 2 Alison Gopnik David Hume and the Buddha, The Atlantic, October Emily Fox Gordon Confessing and Confiding, The American Scholar, Spring Vivian Gornick Why I Live Where I Live, The New Republic, November Michael Gracey My Own Good Daemon, Ninth Letter, Fall/Winter T. Austin Graham Songs of the Century, New Literary History, vol. 4, no. 4 Sue Granzella Andiamo! Ascent, May 20 Allison Green Twenty Hours and Ten Minutes of Therapy, The Gettysburg Review, Spring Stephen Greenblatt Shakespeare in Tehran, The New York Review of Books, April 2 Mark Grief Seeing Through Police, n+1, Spring Genese Grill Almandal Grimoire: The Book as Magical Object, The Georgia Review, Winter Ona Gritz It's Time, The Rumpus, August 12 Melissa Grunow We're All Mad Here: A Field Guide to Feigning Sanity, Limestone, Fall Penny Guisinger The Sound of Galton's Whistle, The Rumpus, June 14 Margaret Morganroth Gullette Morgie Waits for Her Future Self to Appear, South Street, Fall Debra Gwartney We All Must Live by the Rules, Tin House, no. 63 Shahnaz Habib Hospitality, Brevity, September 3 Meaghan Hackinen Where the Tide Rushes Between, One Throne Magazine, Fall Rachel Hadas The Honors Student, the Plagiarist, and the Fan, Hotel Amerika, Winter Jessica Erica Hahn Last Man Standing, p.r.i.c.k of the Spindle, no. 8 James Allen Hall Be Destroyed, Alaska Quarterly Review, Spring/Summer Jane Eaton Hamilton Never Say I Didn't Bring You Flowers, Full Grown People, January 8 Jeffrey Hammond Eight-Per-Five, Under the Sun, Summer Liz Windhorst Harmer Correctives, Prism, Winter Bonnie Harris Irene, Profane, Winter Webb Harris Jr.

Long Time Comin': The Education of Brother Webb, Southern Humanities Review, vol. 48, no. 4 Lee Haupt The Ring, Image, no. 87 Karen Hayes CV x K, Pa.s.sages North, no. 36 Ursula Hegi I'm Searching for a Home for Unwed Girls, New England Review, vol. 36, no. 3 Danny Heitman Our Contemporary, Montaigne, Humanities, March/April Robin Hemley Border Crossing, Orion, July/August Aleksandar Hemon In Search of Lost s.p.a.ce, Freeman's, no. 1 Julie Henson Sisters Peeling, New Ohio Review, Fall Mich.e.l.le Herman Gone, Creative Nonfiction, Winter Daisy Hernandez Los Ojos, Dogwood, Spring Doug Hesse Teaching a Stone to Read, Fourth Genre, Fall Emily Hipchen Hush, Under the Sun, Summer Edward Hoagland The Mysteries of Attraction, The American Scholar, Autumn Ann Hodgman Against Locavores, Tin House, no. 63 Ming Holden Jacqueline and the Negative Imagination, Hayden's Ferry Review, Fall/Winter BJ Hollars Hirof.u.kus.h.i.+ma, Pa.s.sages North, no. 36 Ann Hood Abingdon Square, The Normal School, vol. 8, no. 2 Bell Hooks Writing Without Labels, Appalachian Heritage, Fall Elizabeth Hoover Smudge, Story Quarterly, no. 48 Patricia Horvath Wrath, The Los Angeles Review, Fall Kerry Howley The Cage of You, Granta, no. 132 William Huhn You Forgot These, Thema, Autumn Christine Hume Ventifacts, Conjunctions, no. 64 Courtney Humphries Teeth, Bluestem, Spring Erica Hunt Chasing a Ghost, Portrait of My Father, The Literary Review, Fall Barbara Hurd The Ear Is a Lonely Hunter, Ecotone, Fall Pico Iyer The Foreign Spell, Lapham's Quarterly, Winter Stanley Jacobs The Oriel Window, Tampa Review, no. 50 Alison Condie Jaenicke I Slept Well if You Slept Well, Isthmus, Fall/Winter Evan James Grotesk, Oxford American, no. 90 Leslie Jamison Giving Up the Ghost, Harper's Magazine, March Fenton Johnson Going It Alone, Harper's Magazine, April Lacy M. Johnson On Mercy, Guernica, October 1 Alex R. Jones Small Time, The Sun, April Louis B. Jones Varney's, The Threepenny Review, Fall Latoya Jordan After Striking a Fixed Object, Manifest-Station, July 22 Fabienne Josaphat Summer Is an Empty House, Grist, no. 8 Howard Kaplan The St. Jude's Old-Timers Softball Draft Night, Splice Today, May 6 Moss Kaplan Viewing the Dead, The Literary Review, Fall Garrett Keizer Hokusai's Octopus: A Romp at the Edge of the Deep, The Kenyon Review, May/June Anne Marie Kennedy Nowhere on the Chart, New Hibernia Review, Autumn Randall Kennedy Lifting as We Climb, Harper's Magazine, October Thomas E. Kennedy Prudence and Method, New Letters, vol. 82, no. 1 Harrison Scott Key Man Is But an a.s.s, Image, no. 84 Ralph Keyes Smoking with Mom, The Antioch Review, Winter Porochista Khakpour Federer as Irreligious Experience, Prairie Schooner, Winter Lydia Kiesling Beautiful Babies, The Millions, July 28 Jean Kim The Hijacked Flight My Mother Didn't Take, Medium, February Kenneth King At the Crossroads, North Dakota Quarterly, vol. 82, no. 4 Martha King Outside Inside, A Public s.p.a.ce, no. 23 Alison Kinney The Uses of Orphans, The New Inquiry, October 2 Dasha Kiper Hope Is the Enemy, The American Scholar, Autumn Ca.s.sandra Kircher No More to the Lake, North Dakota Quarterly, vol. 80, no. 2 Judith Kitchen Breath, River Teeth, Spring Jacqueline Kolosov Pilgrimage to St. Ives, The Sewanee Review, Summer Mary Kudenov A History of Smoking, The Southampton Review, Spring Don Lago Message from s.p.a.ce, Michigan Quarterly Review, Winter Hafeez Lakhani The Argument, Crazyhorse, Fall Annie Lampan The Joints That Hold Us Together, The Ma.s.sachusetts Review, Fall Heather Kirn Lanier The R-Word, The Sun, May Lance La.r.s.en Too Many Mysteries to Shake a Stick At, The Southwest Review, vol. 100, no. 1 Peter LaSalle Invisible Travel: A Cycle Concerning the Creative Imagination, in Nine Parts, The Literary Review, Fall Victor Lavalle Run Your s.h.i.+t, Tin House, no. 65 David Lazar To the Reader, Sincerely, The Normal School, vol. 8, no. 2 Anna Leahy The Give and Take of Grief, The Weeklings, January 30 Harvey Leeds They're Not Pretending Anymore, Green Mountains Review, vol. 28, no. 2 Lawrence Lenhart Dogsucker: The Written Oral, Alaska Quarterly Review, Spring/Summer Sarah K. Lenz Killing Chickens, New Letters, vol. 81, nos. 3 and 4 Brigitte Leschhorn Ghosts March in Ferguson, MO, Crab Orchard Review, Summer/Fall Shara Lessley Point Blank, The Gettysburg Review, Winter Gabriel Levin Our Sorrow and Our Love Move into a Foreign Language, Salamander, no. 41 Cynthia Lewis Big Love, The Hudson Review, Summer Michael Lewis The White Stuff, Vanity Fair, November Alison Lie Her Boyhood, Catamaran, Fall Kerstin Lieff A Boy Named Klaus, The Southeast Review, vol. 33, no. 1 Michael Lindenberger The Vanis.h.i.+ng Terrain of Gay America, The New Republic, July/August Brandon Lingle Tourniquet, The Southeast Review, vol. 33, no. 2 Gordon Lish Postcards, The Antioch Review, Fall Mel Livatino How Do We Love? Notre Dame Magazine, Winter Roberto Loiederman Roadblock, Fifth Wednesday, Spring Priscilla Long Old Things, Used Things, The Antioch Review, Fall Phillip Lopate Experience Necessary, Salmagundi, Winter/Spring Barry Lopez The Invitation, Granta, no. 133 Alice Lowe My Quarrel with Grieving, Permafrost, Winter Sara Beth Lowe Ridge Hounds, The Louisville Review, Fall Jennifer Lunden Evidence, River Teeth, Spring Rachel Luria The Rush Gives Warmth Enough, Sport Literate, vol. 9, no. 1 Stephen J. Lyons The River Will Have the Last Word, Narratively, August 27 Monica Macansantos Becoming a Writer: The Silences We Write Against, TAYO Literary Magazine, May 31 Jody Mace The Population of Me, Full Grown People, June 23 Carmen Maria Machado A Girl's Guide to s.e.xual Purity, The Los Angeles Review of Books, March 5 Kyo Maclear Faltering, Brick, no. 95 Steve Macone On Taphonomy: Digging for Dinosaurs in My Twenties, The Atlantic, October 16 J. B. MacKinnon Facing Fear, Orion, May/June Patrick Madden Spit, Fourth Genre, Spring Terese Marie Mailhot I Know I'll Go, Burrow Press Review, August 18 Patrick Mainelli Hope, Change, Etc., Isthmus, Spring/Summer Antonia Malchik Bitterroot, 1966: A Journal of Creative Nonfiction, Summer Pamela Mandell Berry B., The Los Angeles Review, Spring Corinne Manning The Language of Kudzu, Lake Effect, no. 19 Terrance Manning Jr.

Leave Them Hurtin' When You Leave, Crazyhorse, Fall Stephen Marche The Ghost of Hemingway, Esquire, October Jeannie Marshall A Kind of Hunger, Brick, no. 95 Chelsea Martin Voluntary Responses to Involuntary Sensations, Catapult, September 10 Clancy Martin We Buy Broken Gold, Lapham's Quarterly, Spring Lucy Martin Abe & I, Witness, Spring Marilyn Martin State of Grace, Third Coast, Fall Greg Marshall Suck Ray Blue, Tampa Review, no. 50 Michael Martone Live Blogging My Father's Death, Witness, Spring Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich The Taste of Sardines, Hotel Amerika, Winter David Masello Come Through for Me, Gay & Lesbian Review, July/August Daniel Mason Rogue Wounds, Lapham's Quarterly, Spring Ryan Masters Unless a Kernel of Wheat Falls, Image, no. 87 Melissa Matthewson A Gathering of Then & Now, Mid-American Review, vol. 36, no. 1 D. L. Mayfield Blessed Are the Pure in Heart, Ruminate, Summer Emry McAlear A Hat in the Wind, CutBank, no. 83 Cynthia McCabe Ending It All, The Was.h.i.+ngton Post Magazine, January 18 Susan McCallum-Smith Smithereens, Agni, no. 82 Kenneth A. McClane Thomas: A Hymn to Life, The Antioch Review, Spring Clint McCown Somewhere West of Truth or Consequences, Crazyhorse, Fall Maureen McCoy Smile: Your War Is Over, The Gettysburg Review, Spring Gary L. McDowell How to Cope with Risk, The Ma.s.sachusetts Review, Summer Karen Salyer McElmurray Elixir, South Dakota Review, vol. 51, nos. 3 and 4 Jean McGarry On Writer's Block, The Yale Review, July Caitlin McGill Silent Interrogation, The Southeast Review, vol. 33, no. 2 Kim McLarin The Low Road, The Morning News, July 22 James McWilliams The Examined Lie, The American Scholar, Summer Dinaw Mengestu Returning to Ethiopia, Guernica, December 15 Suzanne Maria Menghraj Usciolu, Flyway, February 15 Daphne Merkin Desperately Seeking No One, Elle, June Maggie Mertens Death with Dignity, Pacific Standard, January 31 Jeffrey Meyers The Lost Girl, Denver Quarterly, vol. 50, no. 1 Kathryn Miles Mapping the Bottom of the World, Ecotone, Fall Nicole E. Miller Last Night at the Breakers, New Letters, vol. 81, no. 2 Sam Miller Gandhi the Londoner, Granta, no. 130 Debra Monroe The Wild Life, Texas Monthly, November Ander Monson Considering a Stain, Sierra Nevada Review, no. 26 Rick Moody Shabby Gentility, Salmagundi, Winter/Spring Dinty W. Moore The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis, or How I Learned to Love My Paranasal Sinuses, The Normal School, vol. 8, no. 2 Dionisia Morales Catch Me, I'm Falling, Hunger Mountain, no. 19 Kyoko Mori Pet Grief, Harvard Review, no. 47 Marilyn Moriarty Territorial Imperative in Planaria, Creative Nonfiction, Spring Robert Morris A Few Thoughts on Bombs, Tennis, Free Will, Agency Reduction, the Museum, Dust Storms, and Labyrinths, Critical Inquiry, Winter Scott Russell Morris Speak English, Please, The Chattahoochee Review, Spring Wesley Morris Who Do You Think You Are? The New York Times Magazine, October 11 John Murillo III Black (in) Time, Indiana Review, Winter Nick Neely Discovering Anna, The Southern Review, Winter Cristina Nehring The Death of Eros, Elle, April John Nelson Birds of the New World, The Antioch Review, Winter Beth Newberry The Curve of the Smoke, Appalachian Heritage, Fall Catherine Newman This Is Fourteen, Brain, Child, Spring D. T. Nguyen Dining Out, The Briar Cliff Review, no. 27 Randon Billings n.o.ble The Heart as a Torn Muscle, Brevity, January 8 Nancy J. Nordenson Physiology Lessons, Comment, Spring Lynne Nugent The Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card, Full Grown People, March 12 Chris Offutt At Last, s.e.x, Slice, no. 17 Melissa Oliveira a.n.a.log, Agni, no. 82 Randy Osborne Seaside Bohemia, Thread, Fall Alexis Paige The Right to Remain, The Rumpus, March 29 Wilfredo Pascual You Have Me, December, Fall/Winter Michael Paterniti The Accident, GQ, March Jenny Patton A Different Direction, Kaleidoscope, Winter/Spring Hilary Peach The Wolf, Event, vol. 44, no. 3 Bradford Pearson My Kidnappers, Philadelphia Magazine, September Dale Peck Voyeur, The Threepenny Review, Spring Adrienne Perry A Dark and Simple Place, Indiana Review, Winter Kiki Petrosino Literacy Narrative, The Iowa Review, vol. 45, no. 3 M. Nourbese Philip Drowning Not Waving, Room, vol. 38, no. 4 Adam Phillips Edward Lear's Nonsense and British Psychoa.n.a.lysis, Raritan, Fall Deesha Philyaw How Can You Be Mad at Someone Who's Dying of Cancer? Full Grown People, February 17 Eric M. Poeschla Hemingway's Last Letter, The Southwest Review, 100, no. 1 David James Poissant On the Disney Cruise, Burrow Press Review, July 21 Bella Pollen Possession, Granta, no. 132 Liza Porter How to Survive the Dinner Table, Chautauqua, no. 12 Susan Power Breaking Stereotypes, Yellow Medicine Review, Fall Thomas H. Pruiksma First Loves, Ploughshares, Summer Sh.e.l.ly Puhak Five Bathrooms and an Outhouse, Creative Nonfiction, Winter Lia Purpura My Eagles, Orion, March/April Claudia Rankine Her Excellence, The New York Times Magazine, August 30 Wendy Rawlings A Singular Apparatus, The Florida Review, vol. 39, nos. 1 and 2 Robert Rebein Bullet in the Brain, Yema.s.see, Spring Paul Reiferson He Wears the Mask, The Southwest Review, vol. 100, no. 3 Sue Repko Detours, Literal Latte, Spring Robin Rinaldi Love in a Time of Plethora, San Francisco, February Jim Ringley What You Don't Know for Certain, The Sun, March Kristina Kay Robinson Ten Years Since: A Meditation on New Orleans, The Nation, August 31 and September 7 Marilyn Robinson Humanism, The Nation, November 9 Walter M. Robinson White Cloth Ribbons, Harvard Review, no. 48 John G. Rodwan Jr.

Pedal Power to the People, The American Interest, May/June Antonia Romani She'll Make Herself Alive, A Public s.p.a.ce, no. 23 Lisa Romeo Not Quite Meet-Cute, Blue Lyra Review, Spring Lee Ann Roripaugh Swarm, South Dakota Review, vol. 52, no. 1 Maxine Rosaler The Lost Boy, Fifth Wednesday, Spring Phyllis Rose My Mother's Yiddish, The American Scholar, Summer Jeremy Rosen An Insatiable Market for Minor Characters: Genre in the Contemporary Literary Marketplace, New Literary History, Winter Jim Ross Slow to Learn, Ray's Road Review, Winter Theodore Ross How to Beat a Polygraph Test, Vice, April Allie Rowbottom Ghosts and Houses, The Florida Review, vol. 39, nos. 1 and 2 Lisa Rudd.i.c.k When Nothing Is Cool, The Point, December 7 Heather Ryan En Pa.s.sant, The Los Angeles Review, Spring Kendell Newman Sadiik The Man Behind Him, Jabberwock Review, Winter Matt Sailor Great Moments in Cinematic Drinking: Jaws, Hobart, October 2 Mark Sanders Homecoming Parade, Permafrost, Winter Scott Russell Sanders Writing While the World Burns, The Georgia Review, Spring Eva Saulitis Man of Letters: An Elegy, Alaska Quarterly Review, Fall/Winter Richard Schmitt States of Mind, The Chattahoochee Review, Fall/Winter David Schneider Scalpel, This Land, Summer Candy Schulman Je Suis a Mother in an Age of Terror, Was.h.i.+ngton Post, January 21 Kathryn Schulz Pond Sc.u.m, The New Yorker, October 19 Eben S. Schwartz The Art of Medicine: Metaphors and Medically Unexplained Symptoms, The Lancet, August 22 Mimi Schwartz The Coronation of Bobby, Creative Nonfiction, Spring Wayne Scott Summer Without End, The Millions, January 22 Danielle Petersen Searls Crusader Chic, Lapham's Quarterly, Fall Heather Sellers I'll Never Bother You Again, The Sun, February Lynda s.e.xson Rock, Paper, Scissors, Image, no. 85 Steven Shapin The Desire to Know, Boston Review, January/February Susan Shapiro What My Father Gave Me, Yahoo, June 19 Aurvi Sharma Eleven Stories of Water and Stone, Prairie Schooner, Spring Kenneth Sherman Living Susan Sontag's Illness as Metaphor, Brick, no. 95 Serena s.h.i.+pp Fis.h.i.+ng, Room, vol. 38, no. 4 Tom Shroder Seoul Mates, The Was.h.i.+ngton Post Magazine, September 13 Ranbir Singh Sidhu The Indian Wedding That Exploded in Violence, Salon, January 1 Gemma Sieff Gone in 60 Seconds, Vice, January Robert Anthony Siegel Criminals, Paris Review, Fall Sherry Simon The Translational Life of Cities, The Ma.s.sachusetts Review, Fall Steven Simoncic I Like You, Under the Gum Tree, January Peter Singer The Logic of Effective Altruism, Boston Review, July/August David Skinner Edmund Wilson's Big Idea, Humanities, September/October John Skoyles Johnny London, Five Points, vol. 17, no. 1 Lauren Slater Bloodlines, The Sun, March Aisha Sabatini Sloan D Is for the Dance of the Hours, Ecotone, Fall Sarah Smarsh The First Person on Mars, Vela, October 20 Justin E. H. Smith The Joke, Harper's Magazine, April Mike Smith My Magpie Mind, December, Fall/Winter Phillip A. Snyder Rental Horses, Sport Literate, vol. 9, no. 2 Rebecca Solnit Abolish High School, Harper's Magazine, April Tamie Parker Song Manhandled, New Ohio Review, Fall Ana Maria Spagna Hope Without Hope, Ecotone, Spring Debra Spark The Dangerous Act of Writing, Agni, no. 81 Matthew Spender Worldly Failure, The Yale Review, October Mairead Small Staid Mad Pieces, The Georgia Review, Fall Erin Stalcup The Art of Teaching, stirjournal.com, June 15 M. D. Stein Acting Like a Doctor, The Southwest Review, vol. 100, no. 3 Michael Steinberg Living in Michigan, Dreaming Manhattan, Great Lakes Review, Summer/Fall Susan Straight The River in Me, Orion, January/February Ginger Strand Vonnegut on the Road, Tin House, no. 65 Emily Stra.s.ser Homeplace, Ploughshares, Winter Abe Streep In Search of a Stolen Fiddle, Harper's Magazine, May Sarah A. Strickley The Beverly Hills Supper Club: An a.s.semblage of Failures, The Normal School, vol. 8, no. 1 Ira Sukrungruang The First Transgression, Midwestern Gothic, Fall Kelly Sundberg Whirling Disease, Denver Quarterly, vol. 49, no. 3 Caroline Sutton A Paper Trail, North American Review, Spring Leopold Szor Obligation, Bellevue Literary Review, Fall Jill Talbot The Fiction of History, The Normal School, vol. 8, no. 1 Adina Talve-Goodman I Must Have Been That Man, Bellevue Literary Review, Spring Simon Tam Trademark Offense, Oregon Humanities, Summer Ron Tanner The Last Draft, The Louisville Review, Spring Ashley P. Taylor Crying: An Exploration, BrainDecoder, December 2 Karen D. Taylor Still Occupied, Transition, no. 118 Matthew Teague The Friend, Esquire, May Gaurav Raj Telhan Begin Cutting, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Fall Kerry Temple The Sun in Our Midst, Notre Dame Magazine, Spring Brandon M. Terry After Ferguson, The Point, Summer Clifford Thomson On the Bus, The Threepenny Review, Spring Richard Tillinghast Four Directions, The Sewanee Review, Summer Lad Tobin The Permission Slip, The Sun, November Joyce Tomlinson Invasion of the Oldies, The Gold Man Review, no. 4 Alison Townsend California Girl, Catamaran, Fall The Scent of Always: A Personal History, with Perfume, The Southern Review, Winter Patrick Tripp Refills, The Threepenny Review, Fall Lori Tucker-Sullivan Detroit, 2015, Midwestern Gothic, Fall Matt Tullis The Ghosts I Run With, SB Nation, April 15 Brian Turner Smoking with the Dead and Wounded, The Georgia Review, Fall David L. Ulin Fifteen Takes on California, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Summer Spring Ulmer Bubbles, Crab Orchard Review, Summer/Fall Geri Urley 13th & B, The Carolina Quarterly, Fall David J. Unger Fail Again, The Point, Summer Lee Upton A Reverse Alphabet for Finis.h.i.+ng, The Kenyon Review, January/February Algis Valiunas The Man Who Thought of Everything, The New Atlantis, Spring Jeannie Vanasco What's in a Necronym? The Believer, Summer Andrea Va.s.sallo Breathe, Solstice, Fall/Winter Patricia Vigderman Out of the Shadows, Harvard Review, no. 48 Jody Noel Vinson The Way to Swann's House, The Gettysburg Review, Summer Sarah Viren A Ballad for You, storySouth, Fall Robert Vivian Gobsmack Essay, Profane, Winter Jerald Walker The Heritage Room, Apogee, no. 6 Nicole Walker Tongue, Witness, Spring Frank Walters The Wave That Tears at Us, Bellevue Literary Review, Fall Esme Weijun w.a.n.g Toward a Pathology of the Possessed, The Believer, Fall Gina Warren The Chicken Project, Orion, July/August Claire Vaye Watkins On Pandering, Tin House, no. 66 Leon Weinmann Bodies of Water, The Literary Review, Summer Jillian Weise Why I Own a Gun, Tin House, no. 65 Wil Weitzel Green Eyes of Harar, Conjunctions, no. 64 Jim White Glossolalia, Epiphany, Fall Chris Wiewiora Submerged, Story Magazine, March Kathryn Wilder Sundance, Southern Indiana Review, Spring Christian Wiman Kill the Creature, The American Scholar, Spring Ariel Winter Tales of Grandma Whittier, Slice, no. 17 Melora Wolff Mystery Girls, Southern Indiana Review, Fall Laura Esther Wolfson After the Autobiography, Superst.i.tion Review, July Baron Wormser Harrisong, Five Points, vol. 16, no. 3 Greg Wrenn Innocence, KROnline, Summer Xu Xi The English of My Story, Lake Effect, no. 19 Amy Yee Exporting Clothes, Importing Safety, Roads and Kingdoms, August 27 Lee Zacharias A Circle, a Line, an Island, Our State, May Jess Zimmerman A Midlife Crisis, by Any Other Name, Hazlitt, July 20.

Dave Zoby Hobart Dreams, The Missouri Review, Summer.

Notable Special Issues of 2015.

The Antioch Review, "The Educated Heart," ed. Robert S. Fogarty, Fall.

The Baffler, "Venus in Furs," ed. John Summers, no. 27.

The Chattahoochee Review, "Migration," ed. Anna Schachner, Fall/Winter.

Conjunctions, "Natural Causes," ed. Bradford Morrow, no. 64.

Creative Nonfiction, "The Memoir," ed. Lee Gutkind, Spring.

Daedalus, "What Is the Brain Good For?" guest editor, Fred H. Gage, Winter.

Ecotone, "The Sound Issue," ed. David Gessner, Fall.

Freeman's, "Arrival," ed. John Freeman, 2015.

Granta, "India: Another Way of Seeing," guest editor, Ian Jack, no. 130.

Harper's Magazine, "How to Be a Parent," August.

Hayden's Ferry Review, "Borderlands," ed. Chelsea Hickok, Fall/Winter.

Hunger Mountain, "The Body Issue," ed. Miciah Bay Gault, no. 19.

Image, "Reading from Two Books: Nature, Scripture, and Evolution," ed. Gregory Wolfe, no. 85.

Iron Horse Literary Review, Kirk Wisland, "Melancholy of Falling Men" (single-author issue), ed. Leslie Jill Patterson, vol. 17, no.5.

The Literary Review, "Flight," ed. Minna Proctor, Fall.

MAKE, "The Value of What's Forgotten," ed. Jose-Luis Moctezuma, no. 16.

Midwestern Gothic, nonfiction issue, ed. Jeff Pfaller and Robert James Russell, Fall.

The Missouri Review, "Loners," ed. Speer Morgan, Spring.

n+1, "Conviction," ed. Nikil Saval and Dayna Tortorici, Spring.

The Nation, 150th anniversary issue, ed. Katrina Vanden Heuvel and D.D. Guttenplan, April.

New Literary History, "Song," ed. Jahan Ramazani and Herbert F. Tucker, Autumn.

North Dakota Quarterly, "Slow," ed. Rebecca Rozelle-Stone and William Caraher, vol. 80, no. 2.

Oregon Humanities, "Safe," ed. Kathleen Holt, Summer.

Orion, "Writing and Art from America's Prisons," ed. Richard Shelton, January/February.

Prairie Schooner, "Sports," guest editor, Natalie Diaz, Winter.

Room, "Fieldwork," ed. Tayrn Hubbard, vol. 38, no. 4.

Salmagundi, "The Best of Salmagundi" (50th anniversary issue), ed. Robert Boyers and Peg Boyers, Winter/Spring.

The Sewanee Review, "Folded Sunsets: At Home and Abroad," ed. George Core, Summer.

Slice, "Desire," ed. Maria Gagliano, Celia Blue Johnson, and ElizabethBlachman, no. 17.

The Threepenny Review, "A Symposium on Jokes," ed. Wendy Lesser, Fall.

Tin House, "Theft," ed. Rob Spillman, no. 65.

Vice, "The Prison Issue," ed. Ellis Jones, October.

Water-Stone Review, "All We Cannot Alter," ed. Mary Francois Rockcastle, no. 18.

Witness, "Trans/lation," ed. Maile Chapman, Spring.

Corrections: Apologies to Jaquira Daz, whose "Ordinary Girls" appears in this volume. Because of a printing mishap, the spelling of her last name was mangled in the list of "Notable Essays and Literary Nonfiction of 2014," which included her essay "My Mother and Mercy" from the August issue of The Sun.

The following essays should also have appeared in "Notable Essays and Literary Nonfiction of 2014": Alexander Chee, Mr. & Mrs. B, Apology, Winter Bettina Drew, The Great Amnesia, Southwest Review, vol. 99, no. 4 Sonja Livingston, Mock Orange, Water-Stone Review, no. 17 John S. O'Connor, The Ice House, Under the Sun, July 31 Ned Stuckey-French, Our Queer Little Hybrid Thing, a.s.say, Fall Visit www.hmhco.com to find all of the books in The Best American Series..

About the Editors.

JONATHAN FRANZEN, guest editor, is the author of five novels, most recently Purity, and five works of nonfiction and translation, including Farther Away and The Kraus Project. He is a member of the Academy of Arts and Letters, the German Akademie der Knste, and the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

ROBERT ATWAN, the series editor of The Best American Essays since its inception in 1986, has published on a wide variety of subjects, from American advertising and early photography to ancient divination and Shakespeare. His criticism, essays, humor, poetry, and fiction have appeared in numerous periodicals nationwide.

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