Vol. IV — Notes in the Margin

Reading is an argument
with the page.

Close readings, essays on craft, and annotations on the books that won't leave you alone. Updated most Sundays.

A good close reading doesn't explain the text away — it makes the text stranger, not smaller.

— From "On Method," the journal's founding essay

Why this journal exists Most literary writing online either summarizes or performs cleverness. This is a third thing: criticism that stays with a single passage long enough to actually see it.