The Literature of Loss

February 28, 2011 | 2 books mentioned

“Loss isn’t science; it’s a human reckoning.” The New York Times posts an e-mail conversation between Joyce Carol Oates and Meghan O’Rourke on why we write about grief, following the release of Oates’ memoir A Widow’s Story and in anticipation of O’Rourke’s own memoir of loss, The Long Goodbye.

is an associate editor for The Millions. She works for the New York Civil Liberties Union, the NY Chapter of the ACLU. She was formerly a writer for The Atlantic's news website The Wire, and a co-editor of NY media blog FishbowlNY. Her writing has appeared in The Millions, TheAtlantic.com, Newsday, National Journal, The Rumpus, and elsewhere, and is partly collected at her website, TheCivilWriter.com. Follow @ujalasehgal.