Introducing WHAT YOU LOVE IS YOUR FATE, a  series of autobiographical essays that respond to literature and art, published every month.

The title comes from a poem by Frank Bidart, a poet I love for his rejection of metaphor and mastery of epiphany. These essays, too, are epiphanic. They, too, are longing for reality. Nietzsche has a similar idea: It is what we love, our passions, that come to be our virtues and ultimately define our lives. It’s this evolution I’m interested in; with the right attention, literature and art can be instructive and illuminating. Not just in how we think, but how we live.