The Yale Review
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“A great contrast to the usual magazine.” —Virginia Woolf Quarterly in print, weekly online. Join a conversation 200 years in the making. Read the latest: https://yalereview.org/ Subscribe: https://shop.yalereview.org/
“The ladies watch whose jewels sparkle as they breathe, the stander in wet boat, his net flinching with fish, the city at the lagoon, surfboat and speedcar see the whole country” From Muriel Rukeyser’s “The Shortest Way Home,” a poem in TYR’s archives:
Muriel Rukeyser: “The Shortest Way Home”
A poem by Muriel Rukeyser: “There was no place on that plain for a city. . . .”
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“But the ruined mills, but the ghost-towns, but the gaunt adolescent short-sleeved, torn-trouser, before the final beach!” From Muriel Rukeyser’s “The Shortest Way Home,” a poem in TYR’s archives, originally published in 1939:
Muriel Rukeyser: “The Shortest Way Home”
A poem by Muriel Rukeyser: “There was no place on that plain for a city. . . .”
yalereview.org
“But the ruined mills, but the ghost-towns, but the gaunt adolescent short-sleeved, torn-trouser, before the final beach!” From Muriel Rukeyser’s “The Shortest Way Home,” a poem in TYR’s archives, originally published in 1939:
Muriel Rukeyser: “The Shortest Way Home”
A poem by Muriel Rukeyser: “There was no place on that plain for a city. . . .”
yalereview.org
I've, somewhat ironically, screenshotted so many parts of this piece by Sarah Thankam Mathews and love it so much. "My screenshots allow me to try certain acts of reconstitution; they renew my knowledge of who and what I love."
The Yale Review@yalereview.bsky.social · 2mo ago“We are, most of us, preparing helplessly for the wrong future.” Sarah Thankam Mathews on screenshots, memory, and loss.
“More life went out, when he went, Than ordinary breath, Lit with a finer phosphor Requiring in the quench” From a poem by Emily Dickinson in TYR’s archives, originally published in 1935:
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“I have so little sense of living what I’m living while I live it that I have to relive it to finally live it.” —Annie Ernaux yalereview.org/article/anni...
Annie Ernaux’s Previously Unpublished Diaries on the Writing Life
Never-before-seen journal entries spanning forty years of Annie Ernaux’s life.
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“More life went out, when he went, Than ordinary breath, Lit with a finer phosphor Requiring in the quench” From a poem by Emily Dickinson in TYR’s archives, originally published in 1935:
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“I think the idea of any kind of art is profoundly connected to the idea that a human being is speaking to me.” Daniel Kehlmann, in conversation on AI and writing. yalereview.org/article/ai-a...
Three Authors on AI and the Future of Writing
Ayad Akhtar, Daniel Kehlmann, and Meghan O’Rourke discuss the creative and social ramifications of the LLM era, from changes in our cognition to shifting…
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“my father visited me while wind turned its nightly pages and his grave gave purpose to the movable earth.” —Phillip B. Williams, “While Reading Lucille Clifton”
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Some things you can only read in print: Annie Ernaux’s “The Memory of Rooms and Other Places,” in the Summer 2026 Issue. Order a copy:
Summer 2026 Issue
Our Summer 2026 Issue. Two pieces by Annie Ernaux: entries from her unpublished journals and an essay, available in print only. Also: a folio titled "What Was AI?" — asked in the past tense because...
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“To be a writer is to learn the terrible lesson of patience. This is a moment to celebrate that lesson of patience—and the messy, embodied, interpretive human intelligence that lives in more than language.” —Meghan O’Rourke
Three Authors on AI and the Future of Writing
Ayad Akhtar, Daniel Kehlmann, and Meghan O’Rourke discuss the creative and social ramifications of the LLM era, from changes in our cognition to shifting…
yalereview.org
“So cold, so clear, so cleaned with distance That when you finally breathe it in, it moves through you As though it’s been waiting millennia to know what lungs are” —Rowan Ricardo Phillips, “The Valley”
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“Emotionally, viscerally, it feels clear: the person who treats the machine ‘as if’ it is a person is the more humane. Yet even as I write that sentence, I can see the ways in which I might be wrong.” —Sheila Heti
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“Every book, especially this one, is a circle around me, and I enclose myself in it completely, until I finish it and come out.” —Annie Ernaux
Annie Ernaux’s Previously Unpublished Diaries on the Writing Life
Never-before-seen journal entries spanning forty years of Annie Ernaux’s life.
yalereview.org
“All of us in pieces, broken. Story of silence, spoken.” —Brenda Shaughnessy, “Overture”
Brenda Shaughnessy: “Overture”
A poem by Brenda Shaughnessy: “Memory . . . only fragments, moments.”
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“By defamiliarizing language and tone, LLMs made me think carefully about their output and, in turn, about my own prose, helping me to approach narrative anew.” —Christopher Sorrentino
Christopher Sorrentino: “How LLMs Set My Writing Free”
Christopher Sorrentino explores how AI helped him revive his writing process and renovate the novel as an experimental form.
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Where did the feminist cyborg utopia go? Meghan O’Gieblyn revisits Donna Haraway — and finds that AI has made the “confusion of boundaries” meaningless.
Meghan O'Gieblyn: Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto in the Age of AI
Meghan O’Gieblyn revisits Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto” and lays out why AI has not ushered in the feminist hybrid utopia that Haraway hoped for.
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“Slick with desire, I am grateful for the many leering eyes of the caterpillar, moths smacking against the glass.” —Natasha Rao, “In Spring”
Natasha Rao: “In Spring”
A poem by Natasha Rao: “Alone in my cabin for weeks, / I long to be touched / by the sun.”
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On our Substack, Sheila Heti picks up where her essay in our summer issue ends — what happened to her conversations with her chatbot, and why she may never finish the book she planned.
Behind the Essay: Sheila Heti
On LLMs, writing, and making sense
backmatter.yalereview.org
“summer, noon, humming, clicks, water currents, arcs of flight, degree of temperature and notes, notes,” From “Event Horizon” by Jorie Graham, a poem in TYR’s archives, originally published in 1992:
Jorie Graham: "Event Horizon"
A poem by Jorie Graham: "I took the soiled dress out, put it in a basin. Soap."
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“I’m worried about what AI will do to all of us, to the labor market, to disinformation, to politics. On that long list of worries, the question ‘Will it write better novels than me?’ doesn’t seem that pressing to me.” —Daniel Kehlmann
Three Authors on AI and the Future of Writing
Ayad Akhtar, Daniel Kehlmann, and Meghan O’Rourke discuss the creative and social ramifications of the LLM era, from changes in our cognition to shifting…
yalereview.org
“and the dress remains, and the flapping thrumming dress all sleeves of wind remains—” From “Event Horizon” by Jorie Graham, a poem in TYR’s archives, originally published in 1992:
Jorie Graham: "Event Horizon"
A poem by Jorie Graham: "I took the soiled dress out, put it in a basin. Soap."
yalereview.org
“It’s getting to the point that I’ll want to die if no one finds this book beautiful” Read excerpts from Annie Ernaux’s journals, in our summer issue.
Annie Ernaux’s Previously Unpublished Diaries on the Writing Life
Never-before-seen journal entries spanning forty years of Annie Ernaux’s life.
yalereview.org
“I think I realize what form a book will take, and what the range of its contents will be, only when I’m quite far along, in order to unconsciously allow the early months and years of writing to be pure and nonperformative.” —Sheila Heti
Sheila Heti: The Life and Death of an AI Chatbot
Sheila Heti remembers the early Chai chatbot she built, and considers how Chai’s users, well, used it—speaking to it violently about sex and more.
yalereview.org
“summer, noon, humming, clicks, water currents, arcs of flight, degree of temperature and notes, notes,” From “Event Horizon” by Jorie Graham, a poem in TYR’s archives, originally published in 1992:
Jorie Graham: "Event Horizon"
A poem by Jorie Graham: "I took the soiled dress out, put it in a basin. Soap."
yalereview.org
“We are, most of us, preparing helplessly for the wrong future.” Sarah Thankam Mathews on screenshots, memory, and loss.
Sarah Thankam Mathews’s Object of Desire
Trawling the pixelated past for old versions of herself, Sarah Thankam Mathews finds that the digital flotsam we cling to can reveal just how much we…
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“Do any poems not spring from memories?” —Rachel Hadas, “The Rhythm of Thought”
Rachel Hadas: “The Rhythm of Thought”
A poem by Rachel Hadas: “At the end of the last class, / one student stayed behind / to ask a question I couldn’t answer.”
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On our Substack, we spoke with Sheila Heti about her essay in our summer issue—and why some “randomness” and “nonsense” are essential to her process.
Behind the Essay: Sheila Heti
On LLMs, writing, and making sense
backmatter.yalereview.org
Order a physical copy of the Summer 2026 Issue — it includes a print-only essay by Annie Ernaux, “The Memory of Rooms and Other Places.”
Summer 2026 Issue
Our Summer 2026 Issue. Two pieces by Annie Ernaux: entries from her unpublished journals and an essay, available in print only. Also: a folio titled "What Was AI?" — asked in the past tense because…
shop.yalereview.org