Jordan Kisner

Jordan Kisner is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and the author of Thin Places: Essays From In Between. Her essay collection, Thin Places, was named a best book of 2020 by NPR. She hosts the podcast Thresholds with Literary Hub, and teaches creative writing at Columbia University.

Latest

  1. The Loneliness of Jodie Foster

    A star since childhood, she spent decades guarding her privacy. On-screen, she’s always played the solitary woman under pressure. But in a pair of new roles, she’s revealed a different side of herself.

    A portrait photograph of the actor Jodie Foster curled up barefoot on a couch, wearing jeans and a navy-blue sweater.
    Daniel Jack Lyons
  2. Fiction on Trial

    Zadie Smith’s ambitious new novel asks: Do we expect the genre to do too much?

    dark-haired woman in Victorian dress holding stereoscope and writing with quill pen in an open book, with 3-way mirror behind and framed by theatrical curtains
    Illustration by Chloe Niclas
  3. ‘That’s Just Like White Noise.’

    Any writer with an interest in probing “American magic and dread”—to borrow a phrase from the novel—is probably in conversation with Don DeLillo, whether or not she knows it.

    Retro-'80s-style illustration of man, woman, girl, and boy watching TV with helicopters and an explosion. The same scene of helicopters is happening outside their window.
    María Jesús Contreras
  4. The Diagnosis Trap

    Doctors have their stories to tell about mental illness. But what about the stories we tell ourselves?

    illustration of the head and neck of person with long dark hair facing away on pink background, with same figure dressed in pink walking through blue tunnel from ear into small door in center of head
    Hoi Chan