Hanh D. Brown, in progress.
I write about
the work itself.
I am a writer who has spent more years than I expected learning that the writing I admire most is the writing willing to be wrong out loud. Most of what I publish here is an attempt to do that, and most of it fails in some small way that I find out about after the fact.
I grew up between two languages and a great deal of silence. I came to essays the way some people come to therapy, which is to say I needed somewhere to put the sentences I could not say to anyone in particular. I am still using essays for that, and I expect I always will.
I write about craft, voice, family, and the small private negotiations that shape a life nobody warned us about. I publish irregularly because the pieces are finished when they are finished, and not before. I host a slow podcast called In Conversation, where I talk to people whose work I admire, mostly about the work itself.
If any of that sounds useful to you, you are very welcome here.
What I am trying to do.
Honest over agreeable
Most published writing fails the test for the same reason most first drafts fail it: the writer was protecting herself instead of telling the truth. I would rather be wrong out loud than careful in private.
Useful over impressive
Impressive writing wants to be admired. Useful writing wants to be borrowed. I aim for the second, and forgive myself when I drift toward the first.
Slow over frequent
I publish when the essay is finished and not before. The newsletter goes out irregularly, the podcast lands once a month, and that pace is the point. Speed is a way of avoiding decisions.
Specific over general
The general feeling moves no one. The specific moment moves everyone. Most of the work of revision, for me, is replacing abstractions with the actual sentence I was avoiding.
The work is the only argument. Everything else is marketing.From Essay № 14 · On writing like you mean it
What I'm working on.
Updated May 2026- 01 A book of essays, working title undecidedIn progress · 60%
Roughly 60,000 words, twelve linked essays on craft and voice. Drafting since spring 2025. Out, if I am lucky, in 2027.
- 02 A long essay on inheriting a nameIn progress · ongoing
Started as Issue 8's long read and has refused to end. I keep adding to it. It may want to be the book's opening chapter.
- 03 In Conversation, Episode 10Recording · May 2026
Recording in May. The guest is a poet I have admired since 2018. I am terrified, in the best way.
- 04 A reading project on essayists who lived twiceReading · slow
Writers who reinvented their voice mid-career. Joan Didion. Annie Ernaux. Vivian Gornick. Notes accumulating in a folder titled almost.
Writers I keep on the desk.
- Bluets
- The Faraway Nearby
- The White Album
- The Years
- Fierce Attachments
- The Friend
- Outline
- Severance
- Pachinko
- A Tale for the Time Being
- The Writing Life
- Bird by Bird
- Thinking, Fast and Slow
- Human Compatible
- Co-Intelligence
If you have something to say.
I read every email. I do not always respond quickly, but I always respond eventually.
Write to me