03.17.19

Let’s give this a try.

Hi! I’m B.D. McClay, an editor, essayist, book critic, and owner of a very attractive dog (pictured). (Only one of these, to me, sounds like an actual thing “to be.” However.)

I used to have an infrequently updated TinyLetter, but now I plan to have a somewhat more frequently updated SubStack. If you want an idea of what this will probably look like, however, the TinyLetter archives are a good place to start. My plan is to use this space for open-ended writings about books and other topics, posting interesting bits I come across in the course of research, promoting interesting writing I’ve read, and of course linking to my own work because self-promotion is the inescapable boulder we’re all pushing up the digital hill.

A few topics you can expect to have show up on a regular basis here: fiction and literary history; poetry; Catholicism; some noodling about issues of political economy, fragility, and interdependence; “women”; humanities-friendly science topics; moral issues around animal…