Maggie Nelson: The Argonauts

When all the mythologies have been set aside, we can see that, children or no children, the joke of evolution is that it is a teleology without a point, that we, like all animals, are a project that issues in nothing . — Phillips/Bersani

MAGGIE NELSONis the author of four previous books of nonfiction: The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning (2011; named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year), Bluets (2009), Women, the New York School, and Other True Abstractions (2007), and The Red Parts: A Memoir (2007). She is also the author of several books of poetry, including Something Bright, Then Holes (2007) and Jane: A Murder (2005; finalist, the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir). She has been the recipient of a 2013 Literature Fellowship from Creative Capital, a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship, and a 2007 Arts Writers grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation. Since 2005 she has taught on the faculty of the School of Critical Studies at California Institute of the Arts. She lives in Los Angeles.