As someone with a really good sense of direction, I had a hard time relating to the terror of Backrooms

The NBR playoff mega-preview is out now, starring @seankuhn.bsky.social @highkin.bsky.social @kylietcheung.bsky.social @ichotiner.bsky.social @eamonwhalen.bsky.social @jacobrosenberg.bsky.social @islemcelroy.bsky.social @maitreyiaa.bsky.social @toley.bsky.social. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/n...

The Provincetown Book Festival is where I met so many writers I love and have been blessed to be in community with ever since. Thank you @islemcelroy.bsky.social for this shout out to MY BAD as one of your favorite books of 2026 so far!

In which novelist @islemcelroy.bsky.social asks Where do we even begin? Some thoughts and potential answers here intheworkroom.substack.com/p/where-to-b...

I wrote about Jordy Rosenberg’s excellent new novel, Night Night Fawn, for @theatlantic.com. www.theatlantic.com/books/2026/0...

"I prefer [characters who] stumble over what they have yet to learn about themselves. They’re the most compelling because they are human." —from @islemcelroy.bsky.social's National Magazine Award-nominated column Character Studies www.thebeliever.net/character-st...

Very surprised and excited to see that my Character Studies column for @thebeliever.net is a finalist for the National Magazine Awards!

Pretty stoked about this!

Loved returning home to find handwritten novel edits from on my editor

My 2025 Grift Guide is here. Featuring Fast Casual Art, Pluribus, Smash Burgers, Literary Parties, and more!! open.substack.com/pub/thescoop...

Thursday, I’m teaching a class on how to write compelling novel openings. You can sign up here! @shipmanagency.bsky.social www.theshipmanagency.com/classes/craf...

The latest round of @nymag.com's Best Books of 2025 includes SAD TIGER! Thanks to @islemcelroy.bsky.social for their thoughtful writeup.

The Channel is a Publisher’s Weekly Book Deal of the Week!

Very excited to share that @islemcelroy.bsky.social has just sold their next novel and I can NOT wait!!!

Very excited to be publishing my 3rd novel, THE CHANNEL, with Lindsey Schwoeri at Viking!! Coming to you summer 2027.

My way of coping with all of the madness is focusing on what I can do to make my community a little bit stronger. So excuse me for all of the earnestness, but I wrote about ways we can all pitch in to support a thriving literary culture. lithub.com/how-to-be-a-...

Loved writing the afterword for the reissue of Jacqueline Harpman’s ORLANDA, a brilliant leap of a body swap novel. A sexy, smart, and beguiling companion to her hit I WHO HAVE NEVER KNOWN MEN. Pick up a copy on September 30!

Some thoughts on Weapons and a lecture about empathy in fiction I delivered at Tin House open.substack.com/pub/thescoop...

I wrote about Sorry, Baby and some thoughts on teachers sleeping with students open.substack.com/pub/thescoop...

Isle McElroy is the author of the novels People Collide and The Atmospherians. They wrote the Best Sex I've Ever Read Column for Vulture and taught a class on Desire and Sex Writing at the Sarah Lawrence MFA program.

Isle McElroy is the author of the novels People Collide and The Atmospherians. Their criticism and essays regularly appear in Vulture, The Atlantic, Esquire, and elsewhere. They are a Shearing Fellow at the Black Mountain Institute and currently teach in the MFA Program at Sarah Lawrence College.

At 34, writer Leah Rae Hulgin learned that being single and being widowed are not quite the same thing. She and her husband Evan met in their early 20s. After eight years of marriage, Evan was diagnosed with stage-four pancreatic cancer at 30 years old. Seven months after his diagnosis, Evan died.

I wrote about how to have better sex for @thecut.com www.thecut.com/article/bett...

An e-mail from someone asking about my work sent me on a little trip down memory lane and I remembered this piece for Hazlitt that I still like for a short story by Isle McElroy

For @vulture.com, I anticipated some summer books www.vulture.com/article/new-...

Excited to be named a 2025-26 Shearing Fellow at the Black Mountain Institute. I’ll be living in Vegas for 9 months, working on my 3rd novel, I’m So Happy You’re Here. www.unlv.edu/news/release...