Jill Talbot
@jilltalbot.bsky.social
Essayist, Single Mother, Reader, Runner, Dog Owner, Postcard Collector, Payphone Photographer, Probably Staring Out a Window. http://jilltalbot.net
“I could spend hours trying to write [my childhood home] as it should be written . . . I should only succeed if I had begun by describing Virginia herself." — Virginia Woolf
Join me December 10th (7-9 Eastern) to discuss persona in the personal essay/memoir. writingworkshops.com/products/ide...
Join me December 10th (7-9 Eastern) to discuss persona in the personal essay/memoir. writingworkshops.com/products/ide...
December 2, 2025 at 5:52 PM
“I could spend hours trying to write [my childhood home] as it should be written . . . I should only succeed if I had begun by describing Virginia herself." — Virginia Woolf
Join me December 10th (7-9 Eastern) to discuss persona in the personal essay/memoir. writingworkshops.com/products/ide...
Join me December 10th (7-9 Eastern) to discuss persona in the personal essay/memoir. writingworkshops.com/products/ide...
Great list here! @literaryhub.bsky.social lithub.com/100-notable-...
100 Notable Small Press Books of 2025
The idea of 100 Notable Small Press Books was born November 2024, after The New York Times’s annual 100 Notable Books list featured eighty-two books from the Big Five publishing houses (Pengu…
lithub.com
December 1, 2025 at 4:44 PM
Great list here! @literaryhub.bsky.social lithub.com/100-notable-...
Thanks to @sonorareview.bsky.social for publishing my essay. sonorareview.com/2025/11/04/s...
Staring at the Silence | Jill Talbot - Sonora Review
Stepping through the back door, I squint against the shadows before sliding into the corner booth of the bar section. The restaurant’s near empty, the way I like it. Every few weeks, I drive the seven...
sonorareview.com
November 12, 2025 at 2:20 AM
Thanks to @sonorareview.bsky.social for publishing my essay. sonorareview.com/2025/11/04/s...
"The postcards materialize an unselfconscious act, a persona not quite public, a version of herself meant to be seen by one other person for a fleeting moment." — Sarah Bochicchio @theparisreivew.bsky.social www.theparisreview.org/blog/2025/11...
Postcards from Virginia Woolf by Sarah Bochicchio
November 7, 2025 – "Woolf likely imagined these cards would end up in a garbage can or, at best, someone’s attic."
www.theparisreview.org
November 7, 2025 at 11:00 PM
"The postcards materialize an unselfconscious act, a persona not quite public, a version of herself meant to be seen by one other person for a fleeting moment." — Sarah Bochicchio @theparisreivew.bsky.social www.theparisreview.org/blog/2025/11...
"What is it about the steady movement of a vehicle—a bus, a plane, a boat, a train—that makes every possible life I could live spill out in front of me?" — Maggie Hart
Love the setting & details & rumination in this essay. @offassignment.bsky.social
www.offassignment.com/articles/mag...
Love the setting & details & rumination in this essay. @offassignment.bsky.social
www.offassignment.com/articles/mag...
To the Boy on the Night Bus — Off Assignment
“You could’ve been five or twelve, for all I knew. I’m not good with children; I haven’t been around them often, never witnessed or memorized the milestones that my friends my age seem to carry like i...
www.offassignment.com
November 5, 2025 at 5:29 PM
"What is it about the steady movement of a vehicle—a bus, a plane, a boat, a train—that makes every possible life I could live spill out in front of me?" — Maggie Hart
Love the setting & details & rumination in this essay. @offassignment.bsky.social
www.offassignment.com/articles/mag...
Love the setting & details & rumination in this essay. @offassignment.bsky.social
www.offassignment.com/articles/mag...
Six Novembers ago (!!), the first essay in my year-long @theparisreivew.bsky.social column ran, followed by 17 more essays across the four seasons about me & my daughter in the year before she left for college—leading to the day I drove away from her dorm. www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/11...
All Our Leavings by Jill Talbot
November 1, 2019 – Jill Talbot’s first essay in a year-long series on her daughter leaving home.
www.theparisreview.org
November 3, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Six Novembers ago (!!), the first essay in my year-long @theparisreivew.bsky.social column ran, followed by 17 more essays across the four seasons about me & my daughter in the year before she left for college—leading to the day I drove away from her dorm. www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/11...
"I, likewise, have invented scenes that occurred long before my birth. I have filled in gaps in the record, 'remembered' things I could not remember, and here and there written what I liked for the sheer fun of writing it." — Gish Jen @lithub.com.web.brid.gy lithub.com/whats-real-a...
What’s Real and What’s Not: Gish Jen on Writing Between the Factual Lines
In his poem, “Epilogue,” Robert Lowell rues the difficulty of making “something imagined/not recalled.” Famously autobiographical, he laments that sometimes everything I write with the threadbare a…
lithub.com
October 21, 2025 at 4:19 PM
"I, likewise, have invented scenes that occurred long before my birth. I have filled in gaps in the record, 'remembered' things I could not remember, and here and there written what I liked for the sheer fun of writing it." — Gish Jen @lithub.com.web.brid.gy lithub.com/whats-real-a...
"Sometimes, we learn the meaning of words and it has nothing to do with dictionaries; the kinds of meanings we learn because we must live them."
"[H]e has become a shoebox of letters in the closet, on a shelf too high for me reach." — Allison Albino The Missouri Review
missourireview.com/albino/
"[H]e has become a shoebox of letters in the closet, on a shelf too high for me reach." — Allison Albino The Missouri Review
missourireview.com/albino/
“Coup de foudre” by Allison Albino | The Missouri Review
Discovering the best in fiction, essays, and poetry
missourireview.com
October 13, 2025 at 3:17 PM
"Sometimes, we learn the meaning of words and it has nothing to do with dictionaries; the kinds of meanings we learn because we must live them."
"[H]e has become a shoebox of letters in the closet, on a shelf too high for me reach." — Allison Albino The Missouri Review
missourireview.com/albino/
"[H]e has become a shoebox of letters in the closet, on a shelf too high for me reach." — Allison Albino The Missouri Review
missourireview.com/albino/
"As we drove on, the miles slipping away beneath us, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there were things that lived in the spaces between what my mother told me and what she kept hidden." —Fay Sachpatzidis @baltimorereview.bsky.social
A fascinating essay baltimorereview.org/summer_2025/...
A fascinating essay baltimorereview.org/summer_2025/...
Fay Sachpatzidis: Root Lady
Fay Sachpatzidis is a writer and poet based in New York City. Her writing has appeared in Prairie Schooner, The Normal School, and Bodega Magazine, among other places.
baltimorereview.org
October 12, 2025 at 6:43 PM
"As we drove on, the miles slipping away beneath us, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there were things that lived in the spaces between what my mother told me and what she kept hidden." —Fay Sachpatzidis @baltimorereview.bsky.social
A fascinating essay baltimorereview.org/summer_2025/...
A fascinating essay baltimorereview.org/summer_2025/...
"As it turns out, I prefer the doorknobs as useless objects, tucked into the back corner of a closet. I suppose at some point they’ll no longer speak to me, and I’ll set them out on the stoop for someone else to take." — Katie Kitamura @yalereview.bsky.social yalereview.org/article/kati...
Katie Kitamura's Object of Desire
A flea-market find unlocks something unexpected for the novelist.
yalereview.org
October 11, 2025 at 4:45 PM
"As it turns out, I prefer the doorknobs as useless objects, tucked into the back corner of a closet. I suppose at some point they’ll no longer speak to me, and I’ll set them out on the stoop for someone else to take." — Katie Kitamura @yalereview.bsky.social yalereview.org/article/kati...
“I just want to think out loud about the things that matter most to me.” @zadiesmith.bsky.social @newyorker.com www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
The Art of the Impersonal Essay, by Zadie Smith
In my experience, every kind of writing requires some kind of self-soothing Jedi mind trick, and, when it comes to essay composition, the rectangle is mine.
www.newyorker.com
September 28, 2025 at 1:56 PM
“I just want to think out loud about the things that matter most to me.” @zadiesmith.bsky.social @newyorker.com www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
"In elementary school art class, we studied the color wheel and contour lines and Vincent van Gogh, which is perhaps where I got the idea that mental illness is a prerequisite of being a successful artist." New @gabemontesanti.bsky.social Essay Alert! @anmlymag.bsky.social anmly.org/ap40/gabe-mo...
Gabe Montesanti – ANMLY
anmly.org
September 26, 2025 at 6:02 PM
"In elementary school art class, we studied the color wheel and contour lines and Vincent van Gogh, which is perhaps where I got the idea that mental illness is a prerequisite of being a successful artist." New @gabemontesanti.bsky.social Essay Alert! @anmlymag.bsky.social anmly.org/ap40/gabe-mo...
Sue William Silverman's latest essay collection: Amazing. I knew it would be when I saw glowing blurbs by other amazing essayists: @paullisicky.bsky.social @jillchristman.bsky.social & Sonja Livingston. @univnebpress.bsky.social
September 15, 2025 at 7:06 PM
Sue William Silverman's latest essay collection: Amazing. I knew it would be when I saw glowing blurbs by other amazing essayists: @paullisicky.bsky.social @jillchristman.bsky.social & Sonja Livingston. @univnebpress.bsky.social
“Away from anything and everything familiar, I was where I wanted to be.” — Joanna Pocock gives us an immersive road narrative in conversation with other writers of the road, views from her past & present self, environmental geography & a celebration of the roadside motel. #ontheroad
August 21, 2025 at 10:11 PM
“Away from anything and everything familiar, I was where I wanted to be.” — Joanna Pocock gives us an immersive road narrative in conversation with other writers of the road, views from her past & present self, environmental geography & a celebration of the roadside motel. #ontheroad
Moved & proud to be a part of this anthology with a collaborative essay with Marcia Aldrich along with an impressive list of contributors. With thanks to an extraordinary editor, Stephanie Vessely. Pre-order here: www.fulcrumbooks.com/product-page...
July 29, 2025 at 11:29 PM
Moved & proud to be a part of this anthology with a collaborative essay with Marcia Aldrich along with an impressive list of contributors. With thanks to an extraordinary editor, Stephanie Vessely. Pre-order here: www.fulcrumbooks.com/product-page...
Published 10 years ago today! softskull.com/books/the-wa... #memoir #books #singlemother #memoirinessays #motherdaughter #roadnarrative #home
July 14, 2025 at 9:45 PM
Published 10 years ago today! softskull.com/books/the-wa... #memoir #books #singlemother #memoirinessays #motherdaughter #roadnarrative #home
My friend, Liane Malinowski, has a wonderful guest essay in Jack Christian’s charming #Substack, Day Dates. I recommend both. open.substack.com/pub/daydates...
Mogan's
The world is your oyster house
open.substack.com
June 30, 2025 at 7:04 PM
My friend, Liane Malinowski, has a wonderful guest essay in Jack Christian’s charming #Substack, Day Dates. I recommend both. open.substack.com/pub/daydates...
I have so much admiration for (& experiential connections with) this memoir by Hala Alyan. A powerful memoir, but also a series of well-crafted, form-forward essays. And so much more. If you've ever waited & guarded your wanting. @simonandschuster.bsky.social www.simonandschuster.com/books/Ill-Te...
June 12, 2025 at 11:34 PM
I have so much admiration for (& experiential connections with) this memoir by Hala Alyan. A powerful memoir, but also a series of well-crafted, form-forward essays. And so much more. If you've ever waited & guarded your wanting. @simonandschuster.bsky.social www.simonandschuster.com/books/Ill-Te...
Today! The Lyric Essay | 4:00 EST Free registration: www.thepoetscorner.org/events/the-l...
June 8, 2025 at 6:09 PM
Today! The Lyric Essay | 4:00 EST Free registration: www.thepoetscorner.org/events/the-l...
Holy shit this is amazing writing. Hala Alyan @electricliterature.com electricliterature.com/an-excerpt-f...
Addiction Is a Story of Wanting Gone Awry - Electric Literature
An excerpt from “I’ll Tell You When I’m Home” by Hala Alyan
electricliterature.com
May 30, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Holy shit this is amazing writing. Hala Alyan @electricliterature.com electricliterature.com/an-excerpt-f...
"[W]e are all carrying a unique ache, or a unique memory, or a unique desire." — Hanif Abdurraqib @newyorker.com
www.newyorker.com/culture/essa...
www.newyorker.com/culture/essa...
In Defense of Despair
The feeling is most commonly framed as an end point, a level of despondency that cannot be overcome. But it doesn’t have to be so.
www.newyorker.com
May 19, 2025 at 6:57 PM
"[W]e are all carrying a unique ache, or a unique memory, or a unique desire." — Hanif Abdurraqib @newyorker.com
www.newyorker.com/culture/essa...
www.newyorker.com/culture/essa...
So cool! A postcard chapbook in @newlettersmagazine.bsky.social by Courtney Kersten. Also available online: www.newletters.org/address-unkn...
May 6, 2025 at 7:00 PM
So cool! A postcard chapbook in @newlettersmagazine.bsky.social by Courtney Kersten. Also available online: www.newletters.org/address-unkn...
For Mothers—in every moment, in every phase, in every season. @wapress.bsky.social
bookshop.org/p/books/the-...
bookshop.org/p/books/the-...
The Last Year
Check out The Last Year - <p>"The moments that change us, the ghosts that follow us, the memories that slow us down or keep us afloat - Jill Talbot has found the language for all of that. Talbot, a lo...
bookshop.org
May 2, 2025 at 11:36 PM
For Mothers—in every moment, in every phase, in every season. @wapress.bsky.social
bookshop.org/p/books/the-...
bookshop.org/p/books/the-...
"I . . . write down the names of motels I pass, partly because they’ve devolved from Technicolor postcard destinations with mod geometric signs, to roadside slumps of peeling paint and mediocre marquee promises." @emdashphillips.bsky.social blackbird-archive.vcu.edu/v14n1/nonfic...
May 2, 2025 at 6:23 PM
"I . . . write down the names of motels I pass, partly because they’ve devolved from Technicolor postcard destinations with mod geometric signs, to roadside slumps of peeling paint and mediocre marquee promises." @emdashphillips.bsky.social blackbird-archive.vcu.edu/v14n1/nonfic...
"We’re all still here, with the windows down, suspended somewhere between then and now." — Melissa Faliveno @kenyonreview.bsky.social kenyonreview.org/piece/drivin...
Driving Around Central Ohio in my Dad’s ’07 Chevy Listening to the CDs of my Youth; or, Put the Past Away; or, August and Everything After - The Kenyon Review
Already have an account? Log in Join KR for even more to read. Sign up for a free account and read any five pieces a month. Sign Up and Read […]
kenyonreview.org
April 26, 2025 at 5:45 PM
"We’re all still here, with the windows down, suspended somewhere between then and now." — Melissa Faliveno @kenyonreview.bsky.social kenyonreview.org/piece/drivin...