Archive - To a Green Thought

Behind the Essay: Garth Greenwell

Writing about morality, sex, and discomfort—plus a few words of advice

Published on Back Matter • Jun 14

On Edmund White (1940-2025)

Remembering a great-hearted man

Jun 5 •

Garth Greenwell

May 2025

Order and Disorder

Trying to see Édouard Vuillard

May 29 •

Garth Greenwell

Writerly Accounts

How one writer makes a living

May 14 •

Garth Greenwell

April 2025

“Art Is Pressurized By Endings”

Paul Lisicky on choosing your mentors, pushing against cynicism, & finitude in art

Apr 25 •

Garth Greenwell

Why Is Hollywood So Bad at Kink?

Babygirl, Secretary, and the challenge of moral spaciousness

Apr 11 •

Garth Greenwell

March 2025

How Memorizing Poems Will Change Your Life

And some tips on getting started

Mar 24 •

Garth Greenwell

A City of Literature

The International Writing Program at the University of Iowa; a new kind of class

Mar 11 •

Garth Greenwell

February 2025

Diabolus ex Machina: Why The Brutalist Is So Bad

& other irresponsible Oscar opinions

Feb 28 •

Garth Greenwell

The Story of a Sentence: Patrick Nathan

On meaning-making, memory, & why so much current sex writing is abject

Feb 3 •

Garth Greenwell

January 2025

An Ideal of Human Company

Announcing the To a Green Thought Book Club

Jan 14 •

Garth Greenwell

An Aesthetics of Tenderness

On Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light

Jan 3 •

Garth Greenwell

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