Caitlin Flanagan
Caitlin Flanagan began her magazine-writing career, in 2001, with a series of extended book reviews about the conflicts at the very heart of modern life—specifically, modern domestic life as it is lived by professional-class women. Flanagan quickly established herself as a highly entertaining social critic unafraid to take on self-indulgence and political correctness, and her essays provide penetrating and witheringly funny observations about the sexes and their discontents.
Flanagan's Atlantic articles have been named as finalists for the National Magazine Award seven times, and her essay “Confessions of a Prep School College Counselor,” which ran in September 2001, was included in the 2002 compilation of Best American Magazine Writing. Her work has also been included in Best American Essays 2003 and Best American Magazine Writing 2003. She is the author of the book To Hell With All That—an exploration, based on her Atlantic articles, of the lives of modern women.
Born and raised in Berkeley, California, Flanagan earned a B.A. and an M.A. in art history from the University of Virginia.
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Illustration by Wayde McIntosh Joan Didion’s Magic Trick
What was it that gave her such power?
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Mikki Ansin / Getty What The New Yorker Didn’t Say About a Famous Writer’s Anti-Semitism
Why are Alice Walker’s vile beliefs about Jews treated so gently?
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Artwork by Johanna Bath The Things I Would Never Do
I’d survived two decades of cancer. But there was one loss I couldn’t accept.
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Illustration by Joanna Neborsky The Day I Got Old
It just suddenly happened, and there isn’t a sports car in the world I can buy to make it otherwise.
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Joanna Neborsky The Cancer Celebrities
Why I love Farrah Fawcett and hate Sheryl Crow
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Joanna Neborsky Tell Children the Truth
What I learned when I told my 5-year-old boys that I had cancer
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Illustration by Joanna Neborsky I’ll Tell You the Secret of Cancer
It’s been almost 20 years since my diagnosis, and I’ve learned quite a bit.
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Wakil Kohsar / AFP / Getty The Week the Left Stopped Caring About Human Rights
It’s remarkable how quickly liberals abandoned the women of Afghanistan.
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Getty; The Atlantic The University of California Is Lying to Us
Does getting right with contemporary concepts of anti-racism mean reviving one of the state’s most shameful traditions?
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Getty / The Atlantic You Really Need to Quit Twitter
How could I have succumbed to this common, embarrassing habit that just about everyone on Earth knows is a scourge?
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Brian Hamill / Getty What Mia Farrow Knew
Farrow says she witnessed disturbing and occasionally ghastly things for years. Why didn’t she act earlier?
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Searchlight Pictures The Anti-consumption Weirdos of Nomadland
I surprised myself by enjoying this sad movie about old people working seasonal jobs.
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Anwar Hussein / WireImage / Getty Meghan Markle Didn’t Do the Work
Part of Meghan’s problem was her naïveté about the workings of the Royal Family, which she had assumed would be similar to the workings of celebrity culture.
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Illustration by Oliver Munday and Arsh Raziuddin; rendering … Private Schools Have Become Truly Obscene
Elite schools breed entitlement, entrench inequality—and then pretend to be engines of social change.
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Getty/Johanna Goodman Worst Revolution Ever
Attacking the U.S. Capitol is not an act of patriotism. Obviously.
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Peanuts / The Atlantic Charlie Brown’s Inside Job
What gives the 1965 Peanuts special its staying power?
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AFP / GETTY / THE ATLANTIC What Language Game Are the Defunders Playing?
The national conversation about police reform has devolved into a never-ending argument over words.
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Illustration by Oliver Munday; NBC / Getty Don’t Subject Your Kids to Rudolph
The world is bleak enough as it is.
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JONATHAN ERNST / Reuters Melania’s Plastic Camelot
Stephanie Winston Wolkoff’s tell-all book about the first lady is as sordid as it is fascinating.
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Getty / The Atlantic Go Ahead, Laugh at Their Expense
The mad king and his courtiers learned a lot about COVID-19.
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