Roger Rosenblatt‘s most recent book is the novel, Thomas Murphy. He is the recipient of the 2015 Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement.
Nonfiction
Nov/Dec 2020
From “Unaccompanied Minor”
Not the crime, but the getaway, what I remember. Running out of the living room, through the center foyer, out the kitchen door, then throwing myself on the cold marble […]
Fiction
Jan/Feb 2016
Have I Told You About This?
An excerpt from Thomas Murphy, appearing this month from Ecco/HarperCollins. Have I told you about this? The day they dropped the giant turf? It never happened, of course, but […]
Fiction
Winter 2014
An Excerpt from “The Boy Detective: A New York Childhood”
“My dear fellow,” said Sherlock Holmes, as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker-street, “life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of […]
Nonfiction
Winter 2012
Kayak Morning*
Reflections on Love, Grief, and Small Boats Two and a half years after our thirty-eight-year-old daughter, Amy, died of an undetected anomalous right coronary artery, I have taken up kayaking. […]
Nonfiction
Winter 2011
The Lightning Bug and the Lightning
Excerpt from Unless It Moves the Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing* Jasmine, Inur, and Kristie took my Modern Poetry class last semester. Nina took that class with […]
Drama
Spring 2009
The Oldsmobiles
Mr. and Mrs. Oldsmobile, a couple anywhere from their late fifties to their late sixties, sit side by side on the scaffolding hanging from the Manhattan Bridge. They look straight […]
Fiction
Winter 2008
Professor Porterfield’s Class
From the forthcoming novel, Beet. The better teachers at any level possess invention and imagination. These powers are not the same and are not equal. An imaginative teacher is […]
Nonfiction
Fall 2007
Just Not for Us: The Writer’s Wife
Look at him, my active man. Sometimes he sits and turns to the left. Sometimes, to the right. I wouldn’t think of disturbing him. He is dreaming his writer’s dreams, […]
Nonfiction
Summer 2007
Just Not for Us: Advanced Journalism
Good morning, journalists. Are you ready to exert our influence? Ready, Professor! Good. Otherwise, we've got a recipe … For disaster! As well as an accident … Waiting to happen! […]
Nonfiction
Spring 2007
Just Not for Us: May I Kill You?
And what do you do? I’m a writer. May I kill you? What do you write, if you don’t mind my asking? I do mind. May I kill you? Would […]
Fiction
Spring 2005
Death Explains Himself
To begin with, a few mistaken impressions: I have never been warmed over. I take no holidays. I be not proud. I have never visited Venice. Oh yes. And this […]
Fiction
Spring 2003
My Bear
My bear is of the polar variety. He squats at the other end of my kitchen table every morning, and he stares at me with his black, black eyes. He […]
Sept/Oct 2017
Ten Dead Darlings
Every so often (all right, every day) I write something with no idea where it’s going. In most cases the answer is, nowhere. So I find myself in possession of, […]
Jan/Feb 2017
Dead Bird
Yesterday afternoon, I heard a thud coming from the area of the kitchen. When I went to look, a dead bird was lying on the deck outside my glass door. […]
Winter 2015
To Leon Wieseltier on His Resigning the Literary Editorship of the New Republic
Dear Leon, You once told me that you were thinking of writing a book on the subject of sighing. That got me thinking about sighing, which in general is what […]
Roger Rosenblatt
KR editor David Lynn and author Roger Rosenblatt in a delightful conversation about writing, teaching, writing programs, precision, and restraint.