Essays

There was the patient, but instead of being surrounded by the surgical team, she was enveloped by the metal arms of a multi-million-dollar robot resembling a giant octopus.

It is difficult to navigate the line between utility and obsessive completeness.

The story of Pirandello’s essay in the inaugural issue of VQR, in which he explained why and how he wrote “Six Characters in Search of an Author.”

“Every writer is born to write one story,” Wallace Stegner once said during an interview. In his case, that story was rich enough to generate over a dozen novels—including the Pulitzer Prize–winning Angle of Repose—as well as fifty-eight...

Greg Mortenson has touched the lives of countless children on the Pakistani-Afghan border.

The past two months have seen a bumper crop of trend pieces about the old and formerly untrendy practice of preserving the harvest.

The story of Evelyn Waugh’s sole publication in VQR.

The completion of a novel is nowhere near as momentous as the birth of a child. But in some ways, the pain and anxiety of separation is similar.

Unlike the men there, I wore a yarmulke. I explained my situation to the waiter behind the counter, asking if I could take a bottle of water and pay him back the next day. He firmly said no.