Washington Post called "the best place to go for original thinking on the left," appears every other week in The Nation; it is frequently reprinted in newspapers across the country. In 2003, "Subject to Debate" won the National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary. She is also a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute.

Pollitt has been contributing to The Nation since 1980. Her 1992 essay on the culture wars, "Why We Read: Canon to the Right of Me..." won the National Magazine Award for essays and criticism, and she won a Whiting Foundation Writing Award the same year. In 1993 her essay "Why Do We Romanticize the Fetus?" won the Maggie Award from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Many of Pollitt's contributions to The Nation are compiled in three books: Reasonable Creatures: Essays on Women and Feminism (Knopf); Subject to Debate: Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics, and Culture (Modern Library); and Virginity or Death! And Other Social and Political Issues of Our Time (Random House). In 2007 Random House published her collection of personal essays, Learning to Drive and Other Life Stories. Two pieces from this book, "Learning to Drive" and its followup, "Webstalker," originally appeared in The New Yorker. "Learning to Drive" is anthologized in Best American Essays 2003.

Pollitt has also written essays and book reviews for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New Republic, Harper's, Ms., Glamour, Mother Jones, the New York Times, and the London Review of Books. She has appeared on NPR's Fresh Air and All Things Considered, Charlie Rose, The McLaughlin Group, CNN, Dateline NBC and the BBC. Her work has been republished in many anthologies and is taught in many university classes.

For her poetry, Pollitt has received a National Endowment for the Arts grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her 1982 book Antarctic Traveller won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her poems have been published in many magazines and are reprinted in many anthologies, most recently The Oxford Book of American Poetry (2006).  Her second collection, The Mind-Body Problem, came out from Random House in 2009.

Born in New York City, she was educated at Harvard and the Columbia School of the Arts. She has lectured at dozens of colleges and universities, including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brooklyn College, UCLA, the University of Mississippi and Cornell. She has taught poetry at Princeton, Barnard and the 92nd Street Y, and women's studies at the New School University.

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Katha Pollitt (original) (raw)

Trump and Netanyahu

The War on Gaza Is an Outrage. Sitting Out the Election Could Make It Worse. The War on Gaza Is an Outrage. Sitting Out the Election Could Make It Worse.

Either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump is going to win the presidency. Not voting, or voting third-party, risks putting Palestinians in even more danger.

Nov 1, 2024 / Katha Pollitt

Gisele Pelicot

Abusers Aren’t Always Powerful Men. Some of Them Are Regular Guys. Abusers Aren’t Always Powerful Men. Some of Them Are Regular Guys.

Even in an age when feminist rhetoric is familiar, violence against women is all too common.

Oct 31, 2024 / Column / Katha Pollitt

Supporters of former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump arrive for a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York on October 27, 2024.

My Long, Strange Trip to Madison Square Garden to Meet the Trumpies My Long, Strange Trip to Madison Square Garden to Meet the Trumpies

Trump supporters told me repeatedly that Trump loves them. How can so many people believe this?

Oct 29, 2024 / Katha Pollitt

Jack Posobiec

Jack Posobiec Calls Leftists “Unhuman.” JD Vance Seems to Agree. Jack Posobiec Calls Leftists “Unhuman.” JD Vance Seems to Agree.

The alt-right grifter’s new book echoes and endorses fascist rhetoric. And the Republican vice presidential candidate blurbed it.

Aug 15, 2024 / Katha Pollitt

Susan Neiman

What’s Left After Wokeness? What’s Left After Wokeness?

An interview with political philosopher Susan Neiman, the author of Left Is Not “Woke.”

Aug 6, 2024 / Column / Katha Pollitt

Whom Should Kamala Harris Choose as Her Running Mate?

Whom Should Kamala Harris Choose as Her Running Mate? Whom Should Kamala Harris Choose as Her Running Mate?

Nation writers make their cases for who the next Democratic vice presidential candidate should be.

Jul 31, 2024 / Jeet Heer, Alexis Grenell, Sasha Abramsky, Erica Etelson, Anthony Flaccavento, Elie Mystal, Joan Walsh, John Nichols, and Katha Pollitt

I’m a Cat Lady, and I Vote

I’m a Cat Lady, and I Vote I’m a Cat Lady, and I Vote

J.D. Vance’s misogynistic comments show what Republicans really think—and how out of step they are with the American public.

Jul 30, 2024 / Katha Pollitt

A photo of three women in a crowd at a protest of Harvey Weinstein, one holding a sign reading

It Shouldn’t Matter How You Got Too Drunk to Consent It Shouldn’t Matter How You Got Too Drunk to Consent

The message in New York State law is clear: If you get drunk or high or wasted, whatever happens is your fault. We have a chance to change that.

May 31, 2024 / Katha Pollitt

pregnancy ultrasound

Abortion Bans Are “an Assault on the Practice of Medicine” Abortion Bans Are “an Assault on the Practice of Medicine”

Restrictive laws don’t just take away the right to choose, say physicians and ob-gyns, but also prevent proper treatment of pregnancies.

May 7, 2024 / Column / Katha Pollitt

Macron with kids

Why Do Men in Government Keep Telling Women to Have Kids? Why Do Men in Government Keep Telling Women to Have Kids?

Heads of state around the world want to prevent population decline. But they’re leaving all the responsibility to mothers.

Feb 20, 2024 / Column / Katha Pollitt

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