Professing literature in Philadelphia. Writing MIDDLEMEN: Literary Agents & the Making of American Fiction (April ‘26).
laurabmcgrath.substack.com
Laura McGrath
My new essay, on "The Institution(s) of High School English," and the chasm that exists between high school and university English departments, is out now in Post45!
Such a pleasure to be thinking alongside this fabulous collection of teachers and scholars!
post45.org/2026/06/inst...
Ha! I gave this talk at Princeton exactly one week before my son was born. I’m super pregnant in this pic. “I should really front-load the argument, just in case my water breaks,” was a real thing I said to my husband while writing this talk.
When it comes to the history of American education, Clifton Hillegass has not gotten his due. In his decades-long career, Hillegass’s name graced the cover of hundreds of books, works that have sold t...
"'No figure,' she writes, 'has been more significant, and yet more invisible' in the 'ecosystem' of contemporary American fiction, and her shrewd, scholarly, and generous work shows why.” Read the full review of @lbmcgrath.bsky.social's Middlemen in @nybooks.com:
Imagine if Tech or Finance allowed their story to be told in the mainstream press almost exclusively by people who hated them. This is what Education has chosen, in large part because it is saboteurs from Finance and Tech who have been doing the choosing.
