Emma Sarappo

I'm Emma, and I’m an editor and critic. Currently, I’m an associate editor for The Atlantic, covering books. Previously, I was the arts editor at Washington City Paper, and you can find my work in Preservation, Pacific Standard, Washingtonian, and The Bitter Southerner, among other places. I graduated from Northwestern University with a journalism degree. I'm from south of Nashville, Tennessee, and I live in Washington, D.C.

You can see much of my work at my MuckRack portfolio. To read all of my work at The Atlantic, click here.

EDITING CLIPS

• Part of the team that assembled The Atlantic’s package of the great American novels in March 2024

• The Atlantic’s summer reading package in 2022 and 2023, various authors

• A Book That Changed How I Think, by The Atlantic Culture Desk (10/25/23, The Atlantic)

• Some Have Yoga. I Have Montaigne, by Yiyun Li (9/4/2023, The Atlantic)

• Can Nature Lie?, by Robin Marantz Henig (7/25/23, The Atlantic)

• My Novel Is a Love Letter My Mother Can’t Read, by Jenny Xie (5/19/23, The Atlantic)

• Why Kids Aren’t Falling in Love With Reading, by Katherine Marsh (3/22/23, The Atlantic)

• When Good Pain Turns Into Bad Pain, by Amanda Parrish Morgan (1/18/23, The Atlantic)

• Will Children’s Books Become Catalogs of the Extinct?, by Tatiana Schlossberg (12/28/22, The Atlantic)

• What’s the One Book That Explains American Politics Today?, various authors (11/4/22, The Atlantic)

• 12 Books to Help You Love Reading Again, by The Atlantic Culture Desk (8/5/22, The Atlantic)

• Eight Books That Explain the South, by Imani Perry (2/8/22, The Atlantic)

• The Legendary Inner Ear Studios Closes a Chapter by Christina Smart (10/7/21, WCP cover story)

• State of the Arts 2021, various authors (3/11/21, WCP special arts issue with six feature stories)

• Fly Zyah Is D.C.’s Hottest Elementary-Aged Rapper, by Alona Wartofsky (3/12/21, WCP)

• An Act of Nature Brought Down Lou Stovall’s Backyard Studio. Now What?, by Robert Bettmann (1/14/21, WCP)

FEATURES

• Can Dupont Underground Survive Financial Woes and Government Foot-Dragging? (2/20/20, Washington City Paper cover story)

• After Two Chaotic Weeks, The National Philharmonic Lives to See Another Season (7/31/19, WCP)

• The Star of Norwegian Knitwear (11/25/18, The Atlantic)

• Can’t Get There From Here (September 2017, The Bitter Southerner)

GENERAL REPORTING

• How to Keep Your Book Club From Becoming a Wine Club (9/13/22, The Atlantic)

• This Is a Shakedown: Texas has a book-banning problem (12/8/21, The Atlantic)

• Creatives in Need of Funding Say the District Failed Them Twice (1/22/21, WCP)

• The National Philharmonic’s New Season Is Virtual, But Its Musicians Are Playing in Person (10/20/20, WCP)

• A New Poetry Collection Features the Work of Writers—Both Famous and Forgotten—From D.C.’s Past (9/24/20, WCP)

• Collaborative Artists Duly Noted Painters Rethink How to Practice During a Pandemic (5/7/20, WCP)

• How a Tennessee Town Saved an Airplane That Never Flew (3/11/19, Saving Places)

• The Legal Strategy Behind Alabama and West Virginia's New Anti-Abortion Amendments (11/7/18, Pacific Standard)

• The Government Is Accelerating Plans for the West Coast's Earthquake Warning System (10/11/18, Pacific Standard)

• This Twitter Bot Finds the Worst Drivers in DC (9/10/18, Washingtonian)

• Tom Perriello Explains Why Ignoring White Supremacists Doesn’t Work (8/11/18, Washingtonian)

• Why hasn’t the sun burned out yet? (5/3/18, PopSci.com)

CRITICISM

• Against Counting the Books You Read (1/5/24, The Atlantic)

• Our Flag Means Death Is the Opposite of Queerbaiting (4/9/22, The Atlantic)

• The Best Books to Read With Someone You Love (2/13/22, The Atlantic)

• Fake Accounts Is a Novel That Feels Like an Endless Scroll (2/11/21, WCP)

• The Office of Historical Corrections Doesn’t Amend the Record. It Smashes it Open. (11/10/20, WCP)

• Queer Threads: CURIOUS SPACES Gives Queerness Curb Appeal (10/23/20, WCP)

• The All-Night Sun Illuminates the Thorny, Surreal Nature of Grief (7/23/20, WCP)

• Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint Illuminates a Long Overshadowed Visionary (5/14/20, WCP)

• Woolly Mammoth’s Shipwreck Smartly Satirizes the Trump Years (02/27/20, WCP)

• Rachel Vorona Cote’s Too Much is Not Enough (2/13/20, WCP)

• My Queer Valentine Shows the Richness of LGBTQ Life (2/6/20, WCP)

• A New Exhibition Pulls from the Archives to Define Feminist Art (12/5/19, WCP)