photo: G. Evans
Nonfiction, Essays, Interviews
A review of The Legible Element in The Common magazine, by Matt Miller.
(image: Wooley Pond, Little Peconic Bay, Long Island, circa 1965)
A reference to Borges’s concept of intertwining and diverging destinies, this article in the Exeter Bulletin (alumni mag) is a formalized continuation of the conversation I had with fiction writer Paul Yoon at the American School in London in March ‘23. We covered writing, teaching, ideas of home and family, and impulses for the stories in his new collection The Hive and the Honey (longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize; a Time Top 10 Best Fiction Book of 2023 and Must Read Book of 2023; a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice; named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Library Journal, Electric Literature, and the New York Public Library). You can read “Garden of the Forking Paths” here.
“The Legible Element astounds…At times, bathed in the past, "Django" reminds one of the best essays of E.B. White. The emotional heart of the book, it yields to others on surfing, the sport that inspires Mr. Sneeden to paddle forward on coasts both local and distant. It shapes his life and, ironically, grounds him as an escape from a mutable world and its ephemeral experiences.” —Daniel Picker, in The East Hampton Star
July 2023
THE LEGIBLE ELEMENT—A collection of water-centric personal essays, from EastOver Press
“…elemental, cerebral, sometimes dangerous, and completely enrapturing for anyone with a love of wild, liminal places.”
—Alex Wilson, editor, The Surfer’s Journal
“Ralph Sneeden’s lyrical and ontological essay collection […] An inventive and deeply introspective blend of poetry and prose,The Legible Element probes place through the element of water. With keen observations on desire, delight, and dismay, Sneeden beckons his readers to the humbling power of nature.”
—New England Review
November 2022—
My conversation with John Irving about The Last Chairlift and other things…
This project was an energizing way to kick off my pivot from teaching full-time.
October 15, 2021— Just before the release of Surface Fugue, an interview in The Common magazine with Paul Yoon:
This was the first in a series of water-related essays that has been evolving for over a decade, and it has finally found the perfect home at The Surfer’s Journal. Such a privilege to have more work—especially such a long piece— in one of the most inspiring (and gorgeous) physical magazines around. Grab a copy!
“The Retreats”— AGNI Online, December 10, 2018. A personal history about the disasters and distractions that sometimes accompany the bright idea of going away to write, or just trying to find a place to work.
Clockwise from the top: Chilmark (yes, a Mac Plus) circa ‘88, Peterborough, Bridgton, El Dorado, Duxbury, San Diego (Thanks to M. Page for graphic arrangement)
A meditation on cruelty, fear, work, travel…and an inadvertent trip down into a Welsh coal mine.
The Common, October 11, 2018.
—The AGNI Blog: Conversations, January 29, 2018. This is an essay about the influence of these poets on my poem "Peconic," which you can also read by clicking HERE.
—AGNI Online June 6, 2016. AND, reprinted in issue 26.1, February/March, 2017 of The Surfer's Journal
“Looking for Ice”—
in The Common magazine, November 1, 2016, Issue 12. A memoir about the dangers and joys of skating, youth hockey, and the tensions between manufactured and natural ice…
The Common Online (Long Reads) August 1, 2014
"The Cooperative Wave" included in the book— A Classroom Revolution: Reflections on Harkness Learning and Teaching Phillips Exeter Academy, 2015
"Stepping Off: Confessions from the Littoral Zone" The Common Issue No. 08, October 2014. Also, check out the podcast about this essay: a conversation with writer Terese Svoboda, whose story “Dutch Joe” is in the same issue.
"The Classroom as Big Sur: Notes on the Liaison Between Evaluation and Professional Growth" Independent School Magazine Fall 2013
"Live Free and Surf: My Coastal Slice of New Hampshire is Primary Indeed" Zócalo Public Square January 8, 2012
REVIEWS:
"Dispatches from the New Life" ( Left-Handed, poems by Jonathan Galassi) The Exeter Bulletin Summer 2012
"The Large World Everywhere" (Walking to Cootehill: New and Selected Poems, by John Engels) New England Review Vol. 16, No. 2, 1994
FICTION:
"Mud Flats" New England Review Vol. 16, No. 2, 1994
