Brief encounters: a collection of contemporary nonfiction

Aphorisms & ten-second essays / James Richardson

What I hear / Martha Cooley

Listen / Geeta Kothari

Dispatch from Montevideo, in which the Madden family flies to Uruguay and plays the lottery / Patrick Madden

One long sentence / Sven Birkerts

Why I travel / Pico Iyer

La plata perdida / Leslie Jamison

What didn't happen / Anika Fajardo

Summer days, 1983 / Ira Sukrungruang

Excerpt from Don't let me be lonely / Claudia Rankine

White / Harrison Candelaria Fletcher

Passover rental furniture: Houston / S.L. Wisenberg

Brief treatise against irony / Lia Purpura

Cocoons / Barbara Hurd

Max and Minna / Phillip Lopate

No results found / Nicholas Montemarano

Parental pride / Scott Nadelson

Thoughts on time after viewing Christian Marclay's The clock / Chris Daley

The Renaissance / Lynne Sharon Schwartz

A tale of two cities / David L. Ulin

Sputnik 2 / Steven Harvey

Why the long face? / Jennifer Finney Boylan

Home on the prairie: Lincoln, Nebraska / Meghan Daum

There are distances between us / Roxane Gay

Spokane is a coat: 1978 / Kim Barnes

O pioneers! / Benjamin Anastas

Stranded / Jill Talbot

Things gone the way of time / Rebecca McClanahan

4 for Easter / Jeff Oaks

Chess piece / Bill Capossere

Red / Jericho Parms

Umbrellas / Nancy Geyer

Star light, star bright / Jane Brox

Wild life / Cheryl Merrill

American animal / Liz Stephens

What the osprey knows / Pam Houston

Clotheslines / M.J. Iuppa

Foul ball / Greg Glazner

Post-game / Jonathan Wilson

The fan / Eduardo Galeano

Joltin' Joe has left and gone away / Tod Goldberg

The insomniac manifesto / Bernard Cooper

Viennese pathology museum / Amy Gerstler

Ichthyosis / Jennifer Culkin

Los Angelitos / Emily Rapp

The summer after / Tracy Dougherty

How to banish melancholy / Abigail Thomas

Brooding / Michael Martone

Fats / Hilton Als

Hoffmanniana / Marjorie Sandor

When you write about murder / Joe Mackall

Traffic / Jim Krusoe

Securing District Four / J. Malcolm Garcia

Winter journal: the first three pages / Paul Auster

If Mr. Clean had been my father / Dinty W. Moore

The nun / Peggy Shumaker

Swerve / Brenda Miller

Between / Stuart Dybek

A brief history of water / Lance Larsen

Water rising / Leila Philip

Crease / Barrie Jean Borich

The wardrobe series / Kate Carroll de Gutes

Mom x 3 / Joan Wickersham

Gifts / Suzanne Berne

Thanksgiving picnic / Naomi Shihab Nye

the Blur family / Joe Bonomo

Who / Judith Kitchen

A thousand Mary Doyles / Sonja Livingston

Swing / Josette Kubaszyk

Hunger / Emily Holt

A phone call with my father / Paul Lisicky

Future imperfect / Dinah Lenney

Grief / Julian Barnes

The desire to write about The green line / Wayne Koestenbaum

Motes in the light / Lawrence Weschler

Reading / Patricia Hampl

The revolution needs a song / Marvin Bell.