About

Emily Witt is a writer in New York City. (...)

Recent Writing

Recent work for The New Yorker
2024

Upcoming Events

On The Campaign Trail
The New Yorker Festival
Oct 27

Books

Health and Safety, “No one writes about contemporary American life—about drugs, sex, dating, madness—with as hard an edge as Emily Witt. Health and Safety is a masterpiece of observation and analysis. Read it if you can.” —Keith Gessen, author of A Terrible Country
Pantheon
2024
Future Sex, “...a smart, funny, beautifully written account of contemporary women trying to understand their sexual desires—and fashion physically and emotionally safe ways to express them.” —Benoit Denizet-Lewis, The New York Times
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
2016
Nollywood: The Making of a Film Empire, “Witt’s fascination with the business is contagious, and the view she provides into this fledgling market—punctuated with summaries of the overwrought plotlines of some popular movies—makes for an entertaining book.” —Publisher's Weekly
Columbia Global Reports
2017

Journalism & Essays

Excerpt from Health and Safety
The New Yorker
2024
The Precarious Future of Big Sur's Highway 1
The New Yorker
2024
A Trans Teen in an Anti-Trans State
The New Yorker
2023
The Future of Fertility
The New Yorker
2023
Cleaning Up After the Bolsonaristas in Brasilia
The New Yorker
2023
An Alaskan Town Is Losing Ground
The New Yorker
2022
The Last Abortion Clinic in North Dakota
The New Yorker
2022
Reproductive Wrongs
London Review of Books
2022
A Hookup App for the Emotionally Mature
The New Yorker
2022
The Return of NYC Nightlife
The New Yorker
2021
The Conclusion of the Derek Chauvin Trial in Minneapolis
The New Yorker
2021
L.A.'s Disorganized Vaccine Rollout
The New Yorker
2021
Protesting Past Curfew in New York City
The New Yorker
2020
Telfar Clemens's Mass Appeal
The New Yorker
2020
A New Backlash to Gun Control in Virginia
The New Yorker
2020
Marianne Williamson and the Politics of a New Age
The New Yorker
2019
Andrew Yang's Robot Apocalypse and a Divided Nation
The New Yorker
2019
How Legalization Changed Humboldt County Marijuana
The New Yorker
2019
Dispatch from the Texas Senate Race
The New Yorker
2018
The Life and Art of Wolfgang Tillmans
The New Yorker
2018
In Remembrance of Tom Wolfe
The New Yorker
2018
How the Survivors of Parkland Began a Movement
The New Yorker
2018
Three Days in Parkland, Florida
The New Yorker
2018
The Making of a Nollywood Epic
VICE
2017
Dance Outlaws Fight for the Right to Party
The New Yorker
2017
My VR Porn Diary
VICE
2017
Some Thoughts About Future Sex By Its Author
Public Books
2017
Paulina Olowska: Poland's Most Optimistic Artist
T
2016
Eileen Myles: the Poet of a New Generation of Feminists
T
2016
The Trip Planners: On the Founders of Erowid.org
The New Yorker
2015
The Peculiar Genius of Bjork
T
2015
Are You Internet Sexual?
Matter
2015
Interview with Ben Lerner
The Guardian
2015
The Exhumation of Pablo Neruda’s Corpse
Harper’s Magazine
2015
Burning Man Diary
London Review of Books
2014
Tavi Forever
T
2014
Love Me Tinder
GQ
2014
What Do You Desire?
n+1
2013
Some Men Are Trying to Quit Masturbation
NY Mag
2013
Joan Didion, Suzanne Collins, and Sylvia Plath
Paper Monument
2013
Hurricane Sandy
London Review of Books
2012
Online Dating Diary
London Review of Books
2012
GOP String Divas
The New Republic
2012
Interview with Michael Robbins
Paris Review
2012
The Rise of the “Memeoir”
NY Observer
2011
Dispatch from "Poetry on the Rooftops"
Paris Review
2011
J.H. Prynne, Cambridge, and Contemporary British Poetry
n+1
2011
The Mystery of Rosa Luxemburg's Corpse
NY Observer
2011
The "Young Fogeys" of David Cameron's Britain
Foreign Policy
2010
Miami Party Boom
n+1
2010
The Lost Revolutionary Films of Mozambique
n+1
2009
The Failure of Foreign Investment in Mozambique
IRIN News
2008
Miami's Immigration Judges Do Not Care About Your Problems
Miami New Times
2006
An Account of the Press Tour of the Detention Camps in Guantanamo Bay
Village Voice
2006
The Americanization of the Telenovela
Miami New Times
2006
Band of Outsiders
Miami New Times
2006
The City of Miami's Battle Against Feral Chickens, Video Gambling, and Bar Girls
Miami New Times
2005

Reviews

Blackouts, by Justin Torres
London Review of Books
I Heard Her Call My Name, by Lucy Sante
The New Yorker
Tremor, by Teju Cole
London Review of Books
American Gun, by Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson
The New Yorker
Raving, by McKenzie Wark
The New Yorker
Pure Color, by Sheila Heti
London Review of Books
On Freedom, by Maggie Nelson
London Review of Books
Vernon Subutex, by Virginie Despentes
The New Yorker
No One Is Talking About This, by Patricia Lockwood
London Review of Books
My Dark Vanessa, By Kate Elizabeth Russell
London Review of Books
Mescaline, by Mike Jay
London Review of Books
The Problem with Everything, by Meghan Daum
The New Yorker
Lost Children Archive, by Valeria Luiselli
London Review of Books
Three Women, by Lisa Taddeo
The Guardian
Dopesick, by Beth Macy and Dreamland, by Sam Quiñones
London Review of Books
Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism, by Kristen Ghodsee
The Guardian
The Mars Room, by Rachel Kushner
London Review of Books
How to Change Your Mind, by Michael Pollan
The New Yorker
Sticky Fingers, by Joe Hagan
The Guardian
The Rules Do Not Apply, by Ariel Levy
The Guardian
Innocents and Others, by Dana Spiotta
Times Literary Supplement
An Occupation of Loss, by Taryn Simon
The New Yorker
The Girls, by Emma Cline
London Review of Books
The Goddess Pose, by Michelle Goldberg
The Guardian
New Television: Transparent
Harper's
After the Tall Timber, by Renata Adler
NY Times
Girl in a Band, by Kim Gordon
The Guardian
Men, by Laura Kipnis
Pacific Standard
The Birth of the Pill, by Jonathan Eig
Bookforum
Swingland, by David Stern
NY Times
Taipei, by Tao Lin
Daily Beast
The Woman Upstairs, by Claire Messud
London Review of Books
My Struggle: Book Two, by Karl Ove Knausgaard
NY Observer
Spilt Milk, by Chico Buarque
American Reader
Great Expectations, by Robert Gottlieb
NY Observer
Every Love Story is a Ghost Story, by DT Max
NY Observer
Moby-Duck, by Donovan Hohn
London Review of Books
How Should a Person Be?, by Sheila Heti
NY Observer
Intern Nation, by Ross Perlin
Oxford American
The Masque of Africa, by VS Naipaul
NY Observer
Nollywood, Edited by Pierre Barrot
The Nation

Anthologies, Etc.

City by City: Dispatches from the American Metropolis
Happiness: Ten Years of n+1
No Regrets: Three Discussions
Meeting the Devil: A Book of Memoir from the London Review of Books (UK)
Say What You Mean: The n+1 Anthology (UK)
What Do You Desire: The n+1 Anthology — Volume II (UK)
Best American Travel Writing 2011
Website by Andrew LeClair