Emdashes. The New Yorker between the lines
Best of Emdashes: Hit Parade
Weekly: Pick of the Issue
Bimonthly: Ask the Librarians
Submit a question for the next column.
Frequently:
Headline Shooter
Seal Barks
Eustace Google
Looked Into
“Fans of The New Yorker are a dedicated bunch. They relish its arrival every week, check the bylines, and then dive right into a 20,000-word piece. It’s no wonder this passion for a beloved magazine has spawned a site devoted to its pages past and present. Whip-smart writer Emily Gordon obsessively blogs about all topics great and small related to her favorite periodical…. Whether you’re a cover-to-cover obsessive or just a grazer passionate about “Talk of the Town,” you’ll find Ms. Gordon has created a delicious companion to America’s best magazine.” —Yahoo! Picks (With interview)
“A supercool blog about The New Yorker that anyone interested in the magazine’s past, present, and future should be reading.” —Quiet Bubble
“The New Yorker between the lines is the mission of this site that, though unaffiliated with the magazine, is extremely attuned to its subtext, syntax, and semiotics.” —Manhattan User’s Guide (From the 400: a “thoroughly subjective selection of 400 links—from institutional websites to single-person blogs—that we think make a distinctive contribution to life in New York”)
“Give me quality of writing over quantity of posts any day. That’s one of the reasons I recommend a four-month-old blog on The New Yorker that oozes good stuff. You don’t have to be a refugee from John McPhee’s three-part series on geology to enjoy blogger Emily Gordon’s lovely touch with the language, as she alternately strokes and skewers the masthead.” —Lisa Stone (On fourteen “bloggers you may not know, but should,” for Jay Rosen’s PressThink)
“Read her blog about the magazine and anything else that strikes her fancy. Amazing collection of New Yorker links; nobody can touch Emily’s hard work there.” —Kevin Fitzpatrick, Dorothy Parker Society of New York
“Emdashes is wholly New Yorker-centric, for moments when one wants to read the amusing Q & A with The New Yorker’s librarians, or to ponder issues raised in the magazine. Emily Gordon is a smart and generous blogger; how I feel about The New Yorker depends on the day and the issue.” —Biffles at the Bijou
“Un blogue qui se consacre à disséquer la réputée snob publication, dans ses moindres détails.” —Sylvie St-Jacques, La Presse
Emdashes in the news:
In the Toronto Globe & Mail, pronouncing on the DVD archive. They printed a poem by me: “My Mother Saved Copies of The New Yorker.”
In the Daily News, on that notorious Brooklyn cover (no longer findable).
The La Presse interview. Test your French!
Who she?
I'm Emily Gordon, reachable at emily@emdashes.com.
I'm an editor at PRINT magazine in New York City. I've worked at The Nation, Newsday, PEN America, and Legal Affairs. I've written for the NY Times Book Review, Salon, The Washington Post, The Village Voice... continued
I welcome tips, questions, and comments about The New Yorker past and present, plus related events, links, typeface sightings, &c. To contact the magazine or send a submission, click here.
No fear: Everything you say or send is off the record unless we ask for your permission to use it.
This site is neither owned nor operated by The New Yorker magazine or Condé Nast Publications.
A few clips
- Report: Learning to read with comic books edited by Françoise Mouly (for Print)
- Interview: Designer Eleanor Grosch (for Print)
- Review: Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life by Linda H. Davis (for Newsday)
- Review: The King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Review: Does The New Republic's recent redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Proposal: A more attractive MetroCard (for A Brief Message)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Report: Eustace Tilley spruces up for The New Yorker's website redesign (for Print)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands (for Print)
- Review: books about various New Yorker cartoonists by Liza Donnelly and Iain Topliss (for Newsday)
- Profile: screenwriter and novelist Joe Keenan (for Newsday)
- Review: The Complete New Yorker (for Print)
Tell me more
They say that dashes “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like em dashes—emphasizes what’s between: in particular, between the lines, covers, and issues of a magazine close to my heart.
Primary sources
The New Yorker
Events listed by the magazine
Web resources: New Yorker writers and artists
Books, Organizations, &c.
Written and edited by Emily Gordon (plus various guest contributors), designed by Pretty, and illustrated by Inkleaf. Additional drawings by Carolita Johnson. Kissable pencil girl by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
The Rossosphere
- Mick Stevens: I Really Should Be Drawing
- Resistance Is Fertile
- Newyorkette
- Matthew Diffee's HuffPo blog
- Sasha Frere-Jones
- The New York Public Library records
- Map: Caption Contest Winners
- New Yorker haiku
- Between the Squibs
- New Yorker database
- Technorati: New Yorker
- Wikipedia: The New Yorker
- The New Orcer
- Access My Library
- New Yorker Comment
- Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise
- Paul Noth's Pale Force
- The New Yorker Magazine in the 1930s
- Link to suggest? Email it!
- I Hate the New Yorker
- Blog About Town
- Ben Yagoda's homepage
- Modern Spectator
- New Yorker Anti-Caption Contest
- Silence of the City
- Cartoonist Michael Maslin's homepage
- Chiasmus in The New Yorker