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What The New Yorker Didn’t Say About a Famous Writer’s Anti-Semitism

Why are Alice Walker’s vile beliefs about Jews treated so gently?

This article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic , Monday through Friday. Sign up for it here.

Whatever your views on “cancel culture,” one thing is certain: Search-and-rescue missions on behalf of the disappeared can take strange forms. Witness a 2020 New Yorker essay that was published online under the title “ How Racist Was Flannery O’Connor? ” The question suggested the possibility that something as vile as racism might be calibrated—and that O’Connor’s case had moved from the verdict to the sentencing phase. Was she un-racist enough that “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” could still be taught in English classes, or was she so racist that all copies of “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” should be collected and destroyed?

But if you read past the title, the essay—by Paul Elie, a senior fellow at Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs—turns out to be excellent, a model of the form. It neither shies away from an accounting of O’Connor’s sin nor treats her stories and essays as diminished by that sin. Elie invites us to do something difficult: to hold both the artist and the art in our minds at once.

It’s a tall order, because her opinions are vile. “You know, I’m an integrationist by principle & a segregationist by taste,” she wrote to a friend. “I don’t like negroes. They all give me a pain and the more of them I see, the less and less I like them.” As for James Baldwin, she said that he is “very ignorant but never silent.” James Baldwin— ignorant ! The statement is preposterous. “My question is usually, would this person be endurable if white. If Baldwin were white nobody would stand him a minute.”

Elie gives no quarter to the often-made argument that all of this is explained—and therefore mitigated—by the time and place in which she was born: “All the contextualizing produces a seesaw effect, as it variously cordons off the author from history, deems her a product of racist history, and proposes that she was as oppressed by that history as anybody else was.”

It’s loathsome; she is loathsome. But Elie turns the coin over and over in his hands, at every turn complicating the story. He makes a powerful summation: O’Connor’s words “don’t belong to the past, or to the South,” he writes. “They belong to the author’s body of work; they help show us who she was.”

T he New Yorker recently published an essay about a similarly complicated writer, Alice Walker. This one is by Lauren Michele Jackson, an assistant professor at Northwestern and a contributing writer at the magazine. The occasion is the publication of Gathering Blossoms Under Fire , a collection of Walker’s diary entries from 1965 to 2000, about which Jackson writes elegantly and often persuasively: “Pain, joy, spells of depression, unease, engagement, even disaffection—all are material. They’ll feed the writings; they’ll sustain the readings.”

The publication of a writer’s journals provides an opportunity to combine an assessment of the art with an accounting of the life, and the essay’s somewhat perplexing online title—“ Alice Walker’s Journals Depict a Writer Restless on Her Laurels ”—lets us know we’ll be hearing about Walker’s many achievements. The Color Purple was such an enormous success—the recipient of both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, with more than 1 million copies sold in the first three years—that it tends to overshadow the rest of her work. But Walker is a prolific writer, with an oeuvre composed of novels, short stories, essays, and poetry.

Speaking of Walker’s poetry, here are two lines from her 2017 poem “ It Is Our (Frightful) Duty to Study the Talmud ”:

Are Goyim (us) meant to be slaves of Jews, and not only That, but to enjoy it?

“How Anti-Semitic is Alice Walker?” The New Yorker might have asked. The straightforward answer is very, very anti-Semitic.

As my Atlantic colleague Yair Rosenberg has reported , since 2012 Walker has promoted the ideas of a repugnant person, David Icke, the author of a book called And the Truth Shall Set You Free . The book, Rosenberg writes, “mentions the word ‘Jewish’ 241 times and the name ‘Rothschild’ 374 times. These citations are not compliments.” Icke suggests that the Jewish people helped pay for the Holocaust themselves (if it even happened; he thinks schoolchildren should be encouraged to debate this). He says that the KKK is secretly Jewish, and he seems to be a big fan of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion .

Read: Don’t cancel Alice Walker. Hold her accountable.

As recently as 2018, Walker praised And the Truth Shall Set You Free , during an interview with The New York Times . “In Icke’s books,” she said, “there is the whole of existence, on this planet and several others, to think about. A curious person’s dream come true.” Who knows how many people she has introduced to this terrible thing.

Walker is a fierce critic of the state of Israel, and has refused to allow a Hebrew translation of The Color Purple . She has rejected charges of anti-Semitism as attempts to silence her support for the Palestinians, but the argument that Walker’s issue is only with the Israeli government, not with the Jewish people, is specious. In that poem, she describes the Palestinians as just the latest examples of the victims of an “ancient” evil perpetrated “with impunity, and without conscience, / By a Chosen people.” This is hate.

The New Yorker essay is 4,000 words long, and only a few sentences, in the final two paragraphs, concern Walker’s anti-Semitism. Jackson presents And the Truth Shall Set You Free almost as a bit of sci-fi: “Icke’s thinking includes the theory that mankind has unwittingly been ruled by an intergalactic race of reptilians since antiquity.” Entirely true—but try to guess who most of the reptiles are. As for the troubling fact of Walker’s anti-Semitism, Jackson offers a Freudian explanation: “Having grown up in a place where conspiracies, racial and sexual, were daily realities to be reckoned with, Walker may have developed a belated hunger for more.” Weirder still is this sentence: “Walker, a proper boomer, seems also to have been diving deep into the brackish waters of YouTube.” The “OK Boomer” defense.

I didn’t know exactly which brackish waters she had been diving into, but I turned once again to “It Is Our (Frightful) Duty to Study the Talmud”:

I recommend starting with YouTube. Simply follow the trail of “The Talmud” as its poison belatedly winds its way Into our collective consciousness.

I have no intention of following that recommendation, but I know that videos that describe the Talmud as “poison” aren’t so much “brackish water.” Walker does not seem to feel that her beliefs need any defense, let alone apology. As far as I know, she has never backed down from her position. Last year, in the postscript to her new book, she wrote, “I have no regrets.”

H ere’s what I don’t understand , in the case of the New Yorker essays and in the broader sense: Of all the forms of hatred in the world, why is anti-Semitism so often presented as somehow less evil than the others? Alice Walker’s beliefs are every bit as repugnant as Flannery O’Connor’s. Yet even The New Yorker is willing to dismiss them as the consequence of boomerism, of the sorrow and oppression of her youth, of YouTube—as a late-in-life aberration. It is willing to print an assessment of And the Truth Shall Set You Free that describes it as promoting “anti-Semitic crackpottery.” Crackpottery ? That’s one way of putting it. I realize now that this phrase includes the only appearance of the term anti-Semitic in the essay. If you didn’t come to this essay with a preexisting understanding of Walker’s hateful ideas, I expect it would be very easy to read these sentences about her beliefs and not really know what they are.

Would The New Yorker publish an article on someone with vile beliefs about gays, for example, and never mention those beliefs until the very end—and then in such a coded way that a reader might miss them altogether?

It wouldn’t and it shouldn’t. So why is hatred of Jews treated so gently—and in The New Yorker of all places? Something is rising, and it’s happening right in front of us, and somehow we are all sleeping through the part when there is still time to step in. Last year, David Baddiel, a Jewish comedian from Britain, wrote a book, Jews Don’t Count , arguing that “a sacred circle is drawn around those whom the progressive modern left are prepared to go into battle for, and it seems as if the Jews aren’t in it.” Why? ​​“There are lots of answers. But the basic one, underpinning all others, is that Jews are the only objects of racism who are imagined—by the racists—as both low and high status … somehow both sub-human and humanity’s secret masters.”

I’m also a “proper Boomer,” born in 1961, 16 years after the end of the Second World War. And like a proper Boomer, I read Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl as a teenager. The opening entries made the deepest impression on me—how joyous Anne’s life still was. The book begins with the occasion of her 13th birthday—the presents and flowers from her parents, the plate of cookies she baked and shared with her classmates, the weekend viewing of a Rin Tin Tin film. But already the yellow stars have been sewn on, the curfews implemented. The danger is rising, rising.

The Franks had two daughters, Anne and her talented older sister, Margot. The family was forced into hiding when Margot was “called up.” I didn’t know what that phrase meant. It meant that she received a letter ordering her to leave her home and report to one of the camps. I had an older sister too, and she was also the smarter, more patient one. What if someone came for her? What would we do?

The Franks went into hiding, and almost made it to safety: They lived in the secret annex for two years, and weren’t discovered until August of 1944—less than a year before victory in Europe. The family was sent to Auschwitz, and then the sisters were moved to Bergen-Belsen. Within a few months they died there, and neither of them was ever again seen on the face of this Earth.

Never let anyone—not David Icke, not Alice Walker, not the editors of The New Yorker , not anyone, ever—try to convince you that this hateful ideology is less serious than any other.

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Read the 1999 essay that made Anthony Bourdain famous

Bourdain’s first big essay shows off all the things that would make him a great food celebrity.

by Constance Grady

Before Anthony Bourdain was a TV host, he was a memoirist. And before he was a memoirist — before Kitchen Confidential , before Medium Raw — he was an essayist.

Actually, technically, Bourdain was first a novelist and a short-story writer. “My lust for print knows no bounds,” he wrote on a submission to the downtown literary journal Between C & D in 1985 . In 1995, he published Bone in the Throat , a crime novel set in the restaurant world, and in 1997 a follow-up, Gone Bamboo . Both novels disappeared quickly and quietly.

Bourdain’s writing career truly began to take off with a 1999 essay for the New Yorker. Titled “Don’t Eat Before Reading This,” the piece forms the basis of what would later become Kitchen Confidential — and in its pages, you can see all the elements of Bourdain’s distinctive, charismatic persona already in place.

The essay is framed as advice to a restaurant-goer from someone who knows: Order fish on Tuesday, when it’s fresh and the chef is well-rested from his day off. Never order your food well done, because that’s where kitchen staffs get rid of the worst of their meat. (“The philistine who orders his food well-done is not likely to notice the difference between food and flotsam,” Bourdain explains.) Chicken is for people who can’t make up their minds, but pork is fantastic. At a good restaurant, there will be a stick of butter in every meal.

The savvy insider knowledge is fun, but what really makes the essay pop is Bourdain’s unmistakable voice. There’s lots of bad-boy posturing — Bourdain throws around Spanish obscenities with relish and boasts of the “powerful strain of criminality” in the restaurant industry — and it’s all mixed in with a sensualist’s genuine appreciation for and love of food.

“Good food, good eating, is all about blood and organs, cruelty and decay,” Bourdain writes. “It’s about sodium-loaded pork fat, stinky triple-cream cheeses, the tender thymus glands and distended livers of young animals.”

And that was the food world that Bourdain helped create and make wildly fashionable: one in which eaters could unabashedly celebrate their food, and the insistent physical fact of it.

• Anthony Bourdain, chef, memoirist, and TV host, is dead at 61 years old

You can read the entirety of “Don’t Eat Before Reading This” on the New Yorker’s website .

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The Problem of Nature Writing

The Bible is a foundational text in Western literature, ignored at an aspiring writer’s hazard, and when I was younger I had the ambition to read it cover to cover. After breezing through the early stories and slogging through the religious laws, which were at least of sociological interest, I chose to cut myself some slack with Kings and Chronicles, whose lists of patriarchs and their many sons seemed no more necessary to read than a phonebook. With judicious skimming, I made it to the end of Job. But then came the Psalms, and there my ambition foundered. Although a few of the Psalms are memorable (“The Lord is my shepherd”), in the main they’re incredibly repetitive. Again and again the refrain: Life is challenging but God is good. To enjoy the Psalms, to appreciate the nuances of devotion they register, you had to be a believer. You had to love God, which I didn’t. And so I set the book aside.

Only later, when I came to love birds, did I see that my problem with the Psalms hadn’t simply been my lack of belief. A deeper problem was their genre. From the joy I experience, daily, in seeing the goldfinches in my birdbath, or in hearing an agitated wren behind my back fence, I can imagine the joy that a believer finds in God. Joy can be as strong as Everclear or as mild as Coors Light, but it’s never not joy: a blossoming in the heart, a yes to the world, a yes to being alive in it. And so I would expect to be a person on whom a psalm to birds, a written celebration of their glory, has the same kind of effect that a Biblical psalm has on a believer. Both the psalm-writer and I experience the same joy, after all, and other bird-lovers report being delighted by ornithological lyricism; by books like J. A. Baker’s “ The Peregrine .” Many people I respect have urged “The Peregrine” on me. But every time I try to read it, I get mired in Baker’s survey of the landscape in which he studied peregrine falcons. Baker himself acknowledges the impediment—“Detailed descriptions of landscape are tedious”—while offering page after page of tediously detailed description. The book later becomes more readable, as Baker extolls the capabilities of peregrines and tries to understand what it’s like to be one. Even then, though, the main effect of his observations is to make me impatient to be outdoors myself, seeing falcons.

Sometimes I consider it a failing, a mark of writerly competition, that I’d so much rather take private joy in birds, and in nature generally, than read another person’s book about them. But I’m also mindful, as a writer, that we live in a world where nature is rapidly receding from everyday life. There’s an urgent need to interest nonbelievers in nature, to push them toward caring about what’s left of the nonhuman world, and I can’t help suspecting that they share my allergy to hymns of devotion. The power of the Bible, as a text, derives from its stories. If I were an evangelist, going door to door, I’d steer well clear of the Psalms. I would start with the facts as I saw them: God created the universe, we humans sin against His laws, and Jesus was dispatched to redeem us, with momentous consequences. Everyone, believer and nonbeliever alike, enjoys a good story. And so it seems to me that the first rule of evangelical nature writing should be: Tell one.

Almost all nature writing tells some kind of story. A writer ventures out to a lovely local wetland or to a pristine forest, experiences the beauty of it, perceives a difference in the way time passes, feels connected to a deeper history or a larger web of life, continues down the trail, sees an eagle, hears a loon: this is, technically, a narrative. If the writer then breaks a leg or is menaced by a grizzly bear with cubs, it may even turn into an interesting story. More typically, though, the narrative remains little more than a formality, an opportunity for reflection and description. A writer who’s moved to joy by nature, and who hopes to spread the joy to others, understandably wishes to convey the particulars of what incited it.

Unfortunately, no matter how felicitous the descriptions may be, the writer is competing with other media that a reader could be turning to instead, audiovisual media that actually show you the eagle or let you hear the loon. Ever since the advent of color photography and sound recording, lengthy descriptions have become problematic in all genres of writing, and they’re especially problematic for the evangelizing nature writer. To describe a scene of nature well, the writer is hard pressed to avoid terminology that’s foreign to readers who haven’t already witnessed a similar sort of scene. Being a birder, I know what a ruby-crowned kinglet sounds like; if you write that a kinglet is chattering in a willow tree, I can hear the sound clearly. The very words “ruby-crowned kinglet” are pregnant and exciting to me. I will avidly read an unadorned list of the species—black-headed grosbeak, lazuli bunting, blue-gray gnatcatcher—that a friend saw on her morning walk. To me, the list is a narrative in itself. To the unconverted reader, though, the list might as well say: Ira the son of Ikkesh of Tekoa, Abiezer of Anathoth, Mebunnai the Hushathite . . .

If birds are the writer’s focus, there do exist good stories about individual birds (the red-tailed hawks of Central Park) and individual species (the non-stop trans-Pacific flight of bar-tailed godwits), and I can tell, from the new-story links that nonbirding friends are forever forwarding to me, that reports of astonishing avian feats can overcome the public’s indifference to birds, at least momentarily. Whether such stories make converts—and I’ll say it here explicitly: my interest is in making converts—is less clear. The science of birds and their conservation should be interesting to anyone with a modicum of intellectual curiosity, but the world abounds with things to be curious about. The bird-science writer is painfully aware that he or she has only a few hundred words with which to hook a lay reader. One tempting approach to this challenge is to begin in medias res, by a campfire at some picturesque or desolate location, and introduce us to the Researcher. He will have a bushy beard and play the mandolin. Or she will have fallen in love with birds on her grandfather’s farm in Kentucky. He or she will be tough and obsessive, sometimes funny, always admirable. The danger with this approach is that, unless the Researcher emerges as the true subject of the piece, we readers may feel bait-and-switched—invited to believe that we’re reading a story about people, when in fact the story is about a bird. In which case, it’s fair to ask why we bothered getting to know the Researcher in the first place.

The paradox of nature writing is that, to succeed as evangelism, it can’t only be about nature. E. O. Wilson may have been correct in adducing biophilia—a love of nature—as a universal trait in human beings. To judge from the state of the planet, however, it’s a trait all too rarely expressed. What most often activates the trait is its display by people in whom it’s already activated. In my experience, if you ask a group of birders what got them into birds, four out of five of them will mention a parent, a teacher, a close friend, someone they had an intense personal connection with. But the faithful are few, the unpersuaded are many. To reach readers who are wholly wrapped up in their humanness, unawakened to the natural world, it’s not enough for writers to simply display their biophilia. The writing also needs to replicate the intensity of a personal relationship.

One of the forms this intensity can take is rhetorical. Speaking for myself, I’m a lot more likely to read an essay that begins “I hate nature” than one that begins “I love nature.” I would hope, of course, the writer doesn’t really hate nature, at least not entirely. But look at what the initial provocation accomplishes. Although it risks alienating the already persuaded, it opens the door to skeptical readers and establishes a connection with them. If the essay then reveals itself to be an argument for nature, the opening salvo also insures that the writing will be dynamic: will move from a point A to a very different point B. Movement like this is pleasurable to a reader. Fierce attitudes are pleasurable, even in the absence of forward movement. Give me the blistering prose of Joy Williams in “ The Killing Game ,” a jeremiad against hunters and their culture, or “ The Case Against Babies ,” as ferocious an anti-birth statement as you’ll ever read, in her perfectly titled collection “ Ill Nature .” Indifference, not active hostility, is the greatest threat to the natural world, and whether you consider Williams hilarious or unhinged, heroic or unfair, it’s impossible to be indifferent to her work. Or give me Edward Abbey’s “ Desert Solitaire ,” an account of his years in the Utah desert, in which he fans a simmering Thoreauvian misanthropy into white-hot fire and wields it against American consumer capitalism. Here again, you may not agree with the writer. You may wrinkle your nose at Abbey’s assumptions about “wilderness,” his unacknowledged privilege as a white American. What can’t be denied is the intensity of his attitude. It sharpens his descriptions of the desert landscape and gives them a forensic purpose, a cutting edge.

A good way to achieve a sense of purpose, strong movement from point A toward point B, is by having an argument to make. The very presence of a piece of writing leads us to expect an argument from it, if only an implicit argument for its existence. And, if the reader isn’t also offered an explicit argument, he or she may assign one to the piece, to fill the void. I confess to having had the curmudgeonly thought, while reading an account of someone’s visit to an exotic place like Borneo, that the conclusion to be drawn from it is that the writer has superior sensitivity to nature or superior luck in getting to go to such a place. This was surely not the intended argument. But avoiding the implication of “Admire me” or “Envy me” requires more attention to one’s tone of written voice than one might guess. Unlike the evangelist who rings doorbells and beatifically declares that he’s been saved, the tonally challenged nature writer can’t see the doors being shut in his face. But the doors are there, and unconverted readers are shutting them.

Often, by making an argument, you can sidestep the tonal problem. An essay collection that’s dear to me, “ Tropical Nature ,” by Adrian Forsyth and Ken Miyata, begins by serving up a set of facts about tropical rain forests. The facts are seemingly neutral, but they add up to a proposition: the rain forest is more varied, less fertile, less consistently rainy, more insidiously hostile, than the drenched and teeming “jungle” of popular imagination. It’s a very simple proposition. And yet, right away, there’s a case to be made in the ensuing essays—further expectations to be upended, new astonishments to be revealed. Wedded to an argument, the scientific facts speak far more compellingly to the glory of tropical nature than lyrical impressionism, and meanwhile Forsyth and Miyata, as neutral bringers of fact, remain immune to the suspicion of seeking admiration. The premise of Jennifer Ackerman’s best-selling “ The Genius of Birds ” is likewise simple and sturdy: that “bird-brained” ought to be a compliment, not an insult. Richard Prum’s 2017 book, “ The Evolution of Beauty ,” reached a wide audience by arguing that Darwin’s theory of sexual selection, which mainstream evolutionary biologists ignored or denigrated for more than a century, can explain all sorts of non-adaptive traits and behaviors in animals. Prum’s book has its flaws—the prose is gluey, and Darwin’s theory was perhaps not quite as forgotten as Prum represents it to have been—but the flaws didn’t matter to me. The theory of sexual selection was an eye-opener, and I learned a lot of cool things about a group of tropical birds, the manakins, that I otherwise might never have known. Such is the power of a compelling argument.

For the nature writer who isn’t a polemicist or a scientist, a third avenue to intensity is to tell a story in which the focus is on nature but the dramatic stakes are emphatically human. An exemplary book in this regard is Kenn Kaufman’s “ Kingbird Highway .” Kaufman grew up in suburban Kansas in the nineteen-sixties, became an obsessive birder (nicknamed Kingbird), and conceived the ambition, after he dropped out of high school, of breaking the record for the most American bird species seen in a calendar year. The record is quickly established as the dramatic goal, the protagonist’s coördinating desire. And then, immediately, we’re presented with an impediment: the teen-aged Kaufman has no money. To visit every corner of the country at the right time of year, a birder needs to cover huge distances, and Kaufman decides he’ll need to hitchhike. So now, in addition to a goal and an impediment, we have the promise of a classic road adventure. (It’s important to note that, just as we don’t have to be pedophiles to connect with Humbert’s pursuit of Lolita, we don’t need to care much about birds to be curious about what happens to Kaufman. Strong desire of any kind creates a sympathetic desire in the reader.) As Kaufman makes his way around the country, he’s attentive to the birds, of course, but also to the national mood of the early seventies, the social dynamics of bird-watching, the loss and degradation of natural habitat, the oddball characters along the way. And then the book takes a beautiful turn. As life on the road exacts its toll on the narrator, he feels increasingly lost and lonely. Although seemingly a quest narrative, the book reveals itself to have been, all along, a coming-of-age story. Because we care about the teen-aged Kaufman, we stop wondering if he’ll break the record and start asking more universally relatable questions: What’s going to happen to this young man? Is he going to find his way home? What sets “Kingbird Highway” apart from many other “Big Year” narratives is that it ultimately ceases to matter how many species Kaufman sees in a year. It’s only the birds themselves that matter. They come to feel like the home that he’s been yearning for, the home that will never leave him.

Even if we could know what it’s like to be a bird—and, pace J. A. Baker, I don’t think we ever really will—a bird is a creature of instinct, driven by desires that are the opposite of personal, incapable of ethical ambivalence or regret. For a wild animal, the dramatic stakes consist of survival and reproduction, full stop. This can make for fascinating science, but, absent heavy-duty anthropomorphizing or projection, a wild animal simply doesn’t have the particularity of self, defined by its history and its wishes for the future, on which good storytelling depends. With a wild-animal character, there is only ever a point A: the animal is what it is and was and always will be. For there to be a point B, a destination for a dramatic journey, only a human character will suffice. Narrative nature writing, at its most effective, places a person (often the author, writing in first person) in some kind of unresolved relationship with the natural world, provides the character with unanswered questions or an unattained goal, and then deploys universally shared emotions—hope, anger, longing, frustration, embarrassment, disappointment—to engage a reader in the journey. If the writing succeeds, it does so indirectly. We can’t make a reader care about nature. All we can do is tell strong stories of people who do care, and hope that the caring is contagious. ♦

This is drawn from “ Spark Birds .”

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I Got Published In The New Yorker: Tips And Insights From A Successful Submitter

Getting your writing published in the prestigious pages of The New Yorker is a career-defining accomplishment for any writer or journalist. The magazine’s legendary selectivity and rigorous editing process means that just landing an article, short story or poem in The New Yorker is a major success worthy of celebrating. But how does one actually go about getting published there? In this comprehensive guide, we share insider tips and hard-won lessons from someone who successfully made it into the hallowed pages of The New Yorker.

If you’re short on time, here’s a quick answer to your question: The keys to getting published in The New Yorker are 1) Target your submissions carefully by deeply understanding the magazine’s voice and sections, 2) Perfect and polish your best work before submitting, and 3) Persist through rejection after rejection until an acceptance finally comes through .

In the sections below, we’ll share everything I learned and did along my journey to New Yorker publication, from how I identified what to pitch and submit, to handling those inevitable rejection slips, to working with editors once a piece was accepted. I’ll also pass along wisdom from New Yorker staff and other successful contributors. Whether you’re a writer who dreams of seeing your name under those distinctive cartoons and columns, or simply curious about the submission process, use this guide to gain real-world insights into achieving the writing milestone of getting into The New Yorker.

Understanding The New Yorker’s Editorial Needs

Getting published in The New Yorker is a dream for many writers. With its prestigious reputation and high editorial standards, it’s no wonder that aspiring authors aim to see their work in its pages. To increase your chances of success, it’s important to understand The New Yorker’s editorial needs.

Here are some tips and insights to help you navigate the submission process.

Studying the different sections of the magazine

The New Yorker is known for its diverse range of content, covering topics such as fiction, poetry, essays, cartoons, and more. To better understand what the magazine is looking for, it’s essential to study the different sections and get a sense of their style and themes.

Spend time reading through past issues and familiarize yourself with the types of pieces that are typically published in each section.

For example, if you are interested in submitting fiction, read stories from previous issues to get a feel for the kind of narratives that resonate with The New Yorker’s readership. Pay attention to the tone, language, and themes explored in these stories.

This will give you valuable insights into what the editors are looking for and help you tailor your submission accordingly.

Reading issues like an editor

When reading The New Yorker, approach it with an editor’s mindset. Take note of the articles, essays, or poems that stand out to you and analyze what makes them compelling. Consider the structure, writing style, and unique perspectives that make these pieces successful.

By doing this, you’ll start to develop an understanding of the editorial preferences and tendencies of The New Yorker.

Additionally, pay attention to the topics and subject matters covered in the magazine. Are there any recurring themes or areas of interest? Understanding the magazine’s editorial direction will help you align your work with their needs and increase your chances of catching the attention of the editors.

Remember, The New Yorker receives an overwhelming number of submissions, so it’s crucial to stand out from the crowd. By studying the different sections of the magazine and reading issues like an editor, you’ll be better equipped to tailor your submission to meet The New Yorker’s editorial needs.

Crafting Your Best New Yorker-Worthy Submissions

Submitting your work to The New Yorker can be a daunting task, but with the right approach and a little bit of luck, you too can see your writing published in this prestigious magazine. Here are some tips and insights to help you craft your best New Yorker-worthy submissions:

Matching your writing style to The New Yorker’s voice

One of the most important aspects of getting published in The New Yorker is understanding and matching their distinctive voice and style. The magazine is known for its sophisticated and witty writing, so it’s essential to familiarize yourself with their articles and essays.

Pay attention to the tone, language, and overall vibe of the pieces they publish. This will give you a better understanding of what they are looking for in submissions.

Additionally, don’t be afraid to inject your own personality and unique perspective into your writing. The New Yorker appreciates fresh and original voices, so find a way to stand out while still staying true to their style.

Experiment with different writing techniques and incorporate elements of humor or satire if it aligns with your work.

Creating multiple targeted drafts

When submitting to The New Yorker, it’s crucial to tailor your drafts specifically for the magazine. Avoid sending the same piece to multiple publications without making any modifications. Instead, create different versions of your work, each targeted towards a specific theme or section of the magazine.

Research the different sections of The New Yorker and identify the ones that best align with your writing. Whether it’s fiction, poetry, essays, or cultural commentary, each section has its own unique requirements.

Take the time to understand what they are looking for in each category and adapt your writing accordingly.

Remember, quality is key. Take the time to polish your drafts and make sure they are the best representation of your work. Proofread for grammar and spelling errors, and consider seeking feedback from writing groups or trusted friends.

The more effort you put into crafting targeted and well-written submissions, the better your chances of catching the attention of The New Yorker’s editors.

For more information and inspiration, you can visit The New Yorker’s official website at www.newyorker.com . Their website provides valuable resources, including writing guidelines and examples of previously published work, which can further guide you in crafting your best New Yorker-worthy submissions.

Submitting Your Work and Handling Rejections

Submitting your work to The New Yorker or any other prestigious publication can be an exciting but nerve-wracking experience. However, with the right approach and mindset, you can increase your chances of success.

Here are some valuable tips and insights to help you navigate the submission process and handle rejections with grace.

Following submission guidelines closely

One of the most important aspects of submitting your work to The New Yorker is to follow their submission guidelines closely. The guidelines are there for a reason, and not adhering to them could result in your work being rejected without even being considered.

Take the time to carefully read and understand the guidelines, and make sure your submission meets all the specified requirements. This includes formatting, word count, and any other specific instructions given by the publication.

Furthermore, it’s worth noting that The New Yorker is known for having a unique style and voice. Familiarize yourself with the publication by reading previous issues and understanding their editorial preferences.

This will help you tailor your submission to align with their aesthetic and increase your chances of acceptance.

Persisting through inevitable rejections

Receiving a rejection letter can be disheartening, but it’s important not to let it discourage you from continuing to submit your work. Even the most successful writers have faced numerous rejections throughout their careers.

Remember, rejection is not a reflection of your talent or worth as a writer; it’s simply a part of the publishing process.

Instead of dwelling on rejections, use them as an opportunity to learn and improve. Take the feedback provided, if any, and consider it constructively. Reflect on your work, make revisions if necessary, and keep submitting. The more you persist, the higher your chances of eventually getting published.

It’s all about perseverance and resilience.

Additionally, it can be helpful to join writing communities or seek support from fellow writers who have experienced rejection themselves. Sharing your experiences and discussing strategies can provide valuable insights and encouragement.

Remember, every successful writer has faced rejection at some point in their journey. It’s how you handle those rejections and continue to refine your craft that will ultimately lead to success. So, don’t give up, keep submitting, and one day you may see your work in the pages of The New Yorker or any other publication you aspire to be a part of.

Working Successfully with New Yorker Editors

Expecting rigorous editing of accepted pieces.

One of the key aspects of working with New Yorker editors is understanding and embracing the rigorous editing process that your accepted piece will go through. The New Yorker has a longstanding reputation for its high editorial standards, and they take great care in refining and polishing every piece of work that gets published.

This means that as a writer, you should be prepared for multiple rounds of revisions and feedback from the editors. Don’t be discouraged or take it personally if your piece undergoes significant changes during the editing process .

It’s all part of the collaborative effort to ensure that the final product meets the publication’s standards.

Collaborating professionally during the refinement process

When working with New Yorker editors, it’s crucial to maintain a professional and collaborative attitude throughout the refinement process. Listen to and consider their feedback carefully , as they have a wealth of experience and insight into what works best for their publication.

Be open to suggestions and be willing to make revisions that align with the overall vision of the piece. Remember, the goal is to create the best possible version of your work that resonates with The New Yorker’s audience.

During the collaboration, it’s important to communicate effectively and promptly . Respond to emails or requests for revisions in a timely manner, and make sure to ask for clarification if there’s something you don’t understand.

Be respectful of the editors’ time and workload and show your appreciation for their expertise and guidance.

While working with New Yorker editors can be an intense and demanding process, it is also an incredibly rewarding one. The collaboration and refinement of your work with experienced professionals can help elevate your writing to new heights and increase your chances of getting published in one of the most prestigious literary magazines in the world.

Maximizing the Benefits of Being a New Yorker Contributor

Getting published in The New Yorker is a dream come true for many writers. It not only gives you the satisfaction of seeing your work in one of the most prestigious literary magazines in the world, but it also opens up a world of opportunities for your writing career.

Here are some tips and insights on how to maximize the benefits of being a New Yorker contributor.

Adding a New Yorker credit to your writing portfolio

Having a New Yorker credit in your writing portfolio is like having a golden stamp of approval. It instantly elevates your credibility as a writer and catches the attention of literary agents, publishers, and other industry professionals.

When showcasing your New Yorker publication, be sure to highlight it prominently in your portfolio, whether it’s a physical or online version.

Include a brief description of the piece you had published, and if possible, provide a direct link to the article or a PDF version. This allows potential clients or employers to read your work easily and see the quality of your writing firsthand.

Remember to update your portfolio regularly with any new New Yorker publications to keep it fresh and relevant.

Leveraging the prestige of New Yorker publication

The prestige of being a New Yorker contributor goes beyond just having a credit in your portfolio. It can open doors to various writing opportunities and collaborations. Use your New Yorker publication as a springboard to pitch ideas or submit your work to other prestigious publications, literary magazines, or even book publishers.

When reaching out to other publications, mention your New Yorker credit in your pitch or query letter to grab the editor’s attention. Highlight how your writing has been recognized by one of the most respected publications in the industry and emphasize the unique perspective or style that got you published in The New Yorker.

This can increase your chances of being accepted by other publications and boost your overall writing career.

Furthermore, being a New Yorker contributor can also attract speaking engagements, panel discussions, or even teaching opportunities. Organizations and institutions often seek out writers with a strong publication record, especially if they have been published in prestigious outlets like The New Yorker.

Leverage your New Yorker credit to showcase your expertise and secure these types of opportunities.

As a writer, seeing your name printed in The New Yorker is an incredible feeling hard to replicate. While getting published there requires immense skill as a writer, persistence through rejection, and professionalism when working with demanding editors, it is an accomplishment well worth striving for over a writing career. Use the tips and learnings from my journey outlined here to tilt the odds of a New Yorker acceptance in your favor, no matter how long it takes. The destination is worth the journey many times over when you can finally call yourself a New Yorker contributor.

Hi there, I'm Jessica, the solo traveler behind the travel blog Eye & Pen. I launched my site in 2020 to share over a decade of adventurous stories and vivid photography from my expeditions across 30+ countries. When I'm not wandering, you can find me freelance writing from my home base in Denver, hiking Colorado's peaks with my rescue pup Belle, or enjoying local craft beers with friends.

I specialize in budget tips, unique lodging spotlights, road trip routes, travel hacking guides, and female solo travel for publications like Travel+Leisure and Matador Network. Through my photography and writing, I hope to immerse readers in new cultures and compelling destinations not found in most guidebooks. I'd love for you to join me on my lifelong journey of visual storytelling!

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