Maureen Langloss

Writer, Editor

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This Is Happiness

July 15, 2025 By Maureen Langloss

Maureen's hand holding The London Plane open to a page of orange flowers over a wheat field in the golden hour

Tomorrow, July 16, will be the first anniversary of my mother’s death. Recently, when I think of my mother, the same visceral image springs to mind. Over and over: a slit opens in my chest like a fault line in the earth of my body. I picture an inverted mountain, a kind of V, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Essays on Reading, Latest Post Tagged With: Andrew Martin, Hattie Williams, Katherine Anderson, Molly Jong Fast, Morgan Parker, Niall Williams, Patti Smith, Pork Fluff, The London Plane, The Piano Tuner's Wives, Things in Nature Simply Grow, This Is Happiness, Tiffany Hsieh, William Trevor, Yiyun Li

Every Cut Has a Kerf

December 15, 2024 By Maureen Langloss

The Cover of Issue 62 of the Harvard Review

I am delighted to have two poems in Harvard Review this month, one in their gorgeous new print issue and the other online. I am so grateful to the editors at HR for including me alongside so many authors I admire and for taking such care with all of our work. I hope you will … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Essays on Reading, Latest Post

Best American Short Stories

November 2, 2022 By Maureen Langloss

I am thrilled to share that my story, "I Am in It," published in Alaska Quarterly Review, was noted as a Distinguished Story of 2021 in The Best American Short Stories, edited by Andrew Sean Greer with Heidi Pitlor. It was an honor simply to be included in an issue of AQR and a … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Essays on Reading Tagged With: Best American Short Stories, Short Fiction, short story

Top Ten Bits & Pieces of Ice

January 1, 2019 By Maureen Langloss

I was touched when Little Fiction asked me to write a 2018 top-ten list for their annual New Year's tradition. But I was also stumped. What to write? As I concentrated more on the task, images of ice kept popping into my head. Icebergs, blocks of ice, icicles. I kept shaking … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Essays on Reading, Featured Essay Tagged With: Annie Dillard, Antarctica, Attaboy, cocktails, Dawn Wall, figure skating, Hannah Tinti, ice, Jakobshavn Glacier, Leni Zumas, Maria Semple, Red Clocks, Stephanie Burt, Stephanie Vaughn, Zaria Forman

Purple Ball Day

June 23, 2017 By Maureen Langloss

My kids and I invented our own holiday, and I wrote about it for The Manifest-Station. Read my essay on family traditions, faith, and doubt. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Essays on Reading

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Latest Post

CHARM, Still-Life, and Old Lady Abs

This winter is kicking my ass. I am DRAGGING. It’s partly the brutal cold, it’s partly some health stuff, but it’s mostly the state of the world. I’m heartsick over the violence ICE has perpetrated and the fear that our immigrant and urban communities are living under, particularly in Minneapolis. I’m worried about voter suppression, […]

Featured Work

A bowl of applies on a dark wood surface. Photo credit: Annie Spratt

The Pink Lady, The Honeycrisp

I have a new story, “The Pink Lady, The Honeycrisp,” in Wigleaf today. Wigleaf is one of my very favorite literary magazines; it is a place I go when I need to read something that resonates deeply. I hope my piece resonates in some way with you. I’m grateful to Scott Garson for his smart […]

Bluesky


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