Our new issue is online, with portfolios by Lynn Johnson and Mandy Barker; essays by Sofi Thanhauser and Donovan Hohn; fiction by Bill Cheng, William Pei Shih, and Mimi Lok; poetry by Erin L. McCoy, Leslie Harrison, Sacha Marvin, and Nikki Giovanni. Read it all: www.vqronline.org/summer-2025

VQR Editor at Large Leslie Jamison and her daughter go to the depths of Disneyland in “Dark Ride to the Source,” a new essay in our centennial issue: www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

A fascinating and funny history of writers and stomach distress! www.vqronline.org/winter-2024/...

I love when I read a piece of poetry that resonatesso deeply and on such a personal level. Thank you Amanda Gunn, not only was this beautiful but so very real and raw. Diagnostic I www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

thoughtful exploration of what all those 'one-euro houses!' actually mean in reality

In “Seeing Political,” @LouiePalu.bsky.social’s political photography goes in search of the imperfect picture, deconstructing the photo op to perfect it. Read the rest of his #VQRTrueStory in partnership with the Pulitzer Center from our centennial issue: www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

Cyantown investigates a murder in the latest Open Letter, by Gambineri, from our centennial issue. Find out who did it: www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

Nina Berman’s photographs of Columbia University are “haunting images of a locked-down campus… autocracy revealed in the form of a restive yet silence space under control,” Ellen Schrecker writes in her introduction to the portfolio, new in our centennial issue: www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

this essay about a Pokémon tournament was so good it made me boot up my emulator for the first time in many a year www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

“The second time I escaped a language was conscious and planned. In the summer of 1997, right after college, I left the suburbs of Madrid for New York City to learn English and the language of my body,” Javier Fuentes writes in our latest On Becoming column: www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

Tom Bissell met William Goldman as a young writer in New York City, at first with the intent of profiling him. But their relationship became something more important than a single article, Bissell recalls in “Awe and Splendor,” a profile from our centennial issue: www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

This is one of those Rare Things: a piece about a game that's beautifully written and meaningful (+ readable) to those beyond its fandom. Much applause to novelist/professor Joseph Earl Thomas, and to @longreads.com for pointing in its direction. www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

Grantee George Butler travels back to Syria, after 12 years, to portray a nation rebuilding itself. These interviews for @vqr.bsky.social showcase how civil society—the bedrock of the Syrian humanitarian response—is flourishing across the country. bit.ly/4nUvbvF

4. "The Game Is Played With Great Feeling" (Joseph Earl Thomas) "But this is no mere subculture story or travelogue. It’s a journey under the skin, an investigation of why the game has become such a specific kind of phenomenon." www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

In our Weekly Top 5: * A first-person flood account @texasmonthly.bsky.social * Californians icing ICE @rollingstone.com * Sexually diverse vegetables @noemamag.com * Pokémon: Go! @vqr.bsky.social * Polo clonies @wired.com longreads.com/2025/07/18/t...

A student comes to IIT-Delhi’s administrative offices to change his name—and his entire identity. Read “A Friendship,” fiction by Karan Mahajan in our centennial issue. www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

“The Cloud of Unknowing, 2019,” new poetry by Victoria Chang in our centennial issue: www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

"As my best friend once reminded me: A parent is not a carpenter; she is a gardener. We don’t construct our children. We tend to them." —Leslie Jamison for @vqr.bsky.social www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

Executive editor Allison Wright and editorial assistant Julia Mathas peek behind the curtain of VQR’s formative years in this snapshot from the magazine’s archives, the first in a series that will unfold throughout the year. Tour the vault with them: www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

Grantee @louiepalu.bsky.social is taking an alternative approach to political photography. "What might be gained by revealing the architecture behind these constructed moments of political life?” Learn more in this “visual column” for the @vqr.bsky.social. 👉 bit.ly/44w7TVt

Days after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, George Butler went to Syria. “In the Silences Between Caution and Hope” is a collection of portraits of a society reckoning with what it means to be free. In partnership with @pulitzercenter.bsky.social: www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

ICYMI:

Latest on Columbia with words by historian Ellen Schrecker www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

VQR Editor at Large Leslie Jamison and her daughter go to the depths of Disneyland in “Dark Ride to the Source,” a new essay in our centennial issue: www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

What is going on at Columbia? Ellen Shrecker, esteemed historian of McCarthyism and higher ed, and Nina Berman, documentary photographer extraordinaire, answer clearly.

"But, as Nina Berman’s photographs of Columbia University show, what has been happening to the American academy these days is incommensurably worse." 2/2 www.vqronline.org/spring-2025/...

Our centennial issue is online today, featuring essays from Joseph Earl Thomas, Leslie Jamison, and Tom Bissell; portfolios from Syria by George Butler & Columbia University by Nina Berman; fiction by Etgar Keret & Karan Mahajan, poetry by Victoria Chang, and more: www.vqronline.org/spring-2025

Read “Water-Light,” poetry from Jada Renée Allen in our Winter 2024 issue: www.vqronline.org/winter-2024/...

I think you all should order this issue of @vqr.bsky.social so you can read the stunning ending of this incredible poem by @novicsara.bsky.social

“​​Lily was my dog. In Lily were combined the two most beautiful and highest virtues—I’ve thought about this, and I mean it—the two very highest virtues of all conscious life, which are 1) likes to play and 2) gentleness.” Read James Whorton Jr.’s “Stove City”: www.vqronline.org/winter-2024/...

“Beneath the practicalities and the ethics, there was something else this town was lacking—that ineffable sense not of belonging but of its possibility.” Read Lauren Markham’s reporting on the 1 Euro House project in Italy: www.vqronline.org/winter-2024/...

I am back in NYC & came home to this book haul! It’s like I went to AWP! Thank you to past me for all the pre-orders! Can’t wait to read you @nancykric.bsky.social @cdeskilson.bsky.social @vqr.bsky.social @paisleyrekdal.bsky.social @acrebooks.bsky.social @redhenpress.bsky.social

Fascinating new paper out on a contentious strategy for relocating species threatened by climate change to maintain ecosystem functions. "We must conserve the game, not the players." To read more about this ethical debate, I explored it in depth for @vqr.bsky.social and @gristnews.bsky.social.

“Three years ago, my eyesight began to change. The precision of a royal blue pen, the decisive moment on the page, now just lines and shapes.” Read Cig Harvey’s introduction to her photo portfolio “Beauty is the Only Language Worth Speaking,” from our Winter issue: www.vqronline.org/winter-2024/...

VQR is thrilled to announce the 2024 winners of the Emily Clark Balch Prizes, the Staige D. Blackford Prize, and the VQR Prize for Photography. Each prize includes a monetary award of $1,000. www.vqronline.org/vqr-congratu...

Rodrigo Duterte, former president of the Philippines, was arrested today. In 2019, Adam Willis reported on Duterte’s war on drugs—which forced the Catholic Church to ask itself a defining question: What is its responsibility under an immoral regime? www.vqronline.org/summer-2019/...

"The literary history of indigestion, I came to see, has much to tell us about why we seem to be living, once again, in an age of the stomach."

“Like most people, I’m full of contradictions, but I also don’t want to be treated like shit for being a woman. I am, therefore, a bad feminist.” Read @roxanegay.bsky.social's seminal essay “Bad Feminist,"published in our Fall 2012 issue. #100YearsofVQR www.vqronline.org/fall-2012/es...

“The flags had been taken out of service and were being disposed of according to protocol. Still, there was this ominous, anarchistic feel to watching them burn.” See more of Eugene Richard’s photo portfolio “Do I Know You?” from our Winter issue. www.vqronline.org/winter-2024/...

“We’re taught to celebrate milestones, our achievements and additions, but are never taught how to grieve.” Read “Letting Go” by Clayton Dalton, new from our Winter issue: www.vqronline.org/winter-2024/...

“Birth, parenting, splitting, and stepparenting all require a kind of death in exchange for new beginnings.” Read more from @KellyMcMasters.bsky.social’s “Splitting the Family Story,” new in our Winter issue: www.vqronline.org/winter-2024/...

“The Tiny Things Are Heavier,” new fiction by Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo, follows a young woman from Lagos who moves to Iowa for grad school and finds herself struggling to make connections: www.vqronline.org/winter-2024/... www.vqronline.org/winter-2024/...

“What is an ‘original’ place anyway, when every place is the product of migration upon migration, change after change?” Lauren Markham follows the 1 Euro House program in Italy in “The Sedini Special,” reporting from our Winter issue. www.vqronline.org/winter-2024/...

In our Weekly Top 5: * Propagate language, preserve culture @noemamag.com * Hip-hop hooch hustles (Taste) * Grieving a landscape lost @salvationsouth.com * A gutsy take on indigestion @vqr.bsky.social * All the feels for the forums @thefence.bsky.social longreads.com/2025/02/28/t...

I wrote a small thing for @vqr.bsky.social to intro their weekly featured poem: Larry Levis' stunning "Elegy for Poe With the Music of A Carnival Inside It." I was so fortunate to have known Larry just a bit as a mentor in RVA in the mid-90s & am so grateful for his poems. mailchi.mp/virginia/an-...

"Perhaps the wry twist in Twain’s output came from a similar torque in his guts. A friend once called my prose voice 'acidic.' With an iron stomach, might I read less bitter?" Will Boast for @vqr.bsky.social: longreads.com/2025/02/27/f...

Follow Duke Ellington on his journey to bring jazz to Mars in Michael D. Kennedy’s comic from our Winter issue: www.vqronline.org/winter-2024/...

Read “What Did the Road Do?,” new poetry from Susan Eisenberg in our Winter issue: www.vqronline.org/winter-2024/...

The great @miriamjayaratna.bsky.social in VQR!

Read "How to Win Friends and Horrify People," a #VQRTrueStory by @miriamjayaratna.bsky.social: www.vqronline.org/winter-2024/...