This expression on James Baldwin’s face was my expression a few weeks ago as the returns came in. It may also capture Baldwin’s reaction to my early efforts to teach him. I’ve gone back to teach his work this semester, and I hope I’ve done better. But an account of my teaching him during the Obama presidency was recently published by Guernica.

I’ve also recently written about another writer whose work is equally important to me—Marilynne Robinson. At The Los Angeles Review of Books I have an essay about love in her work and in the world.