Emma Sarappo

I’m an editor and critic. Currently, I’m a senior associate editor for The Atlantic, covering books and literary culture. 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. Jeg kan litt norsk—men jeg lærer mer.

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

• … and The Atlantic’s package of the best American poetry of the 21st century (so far) in March 2025

• The Atlantic 10, The Atlantic’s best books of the year, in 2022, 2023, and 2024, various authors

• The Atlantic’s summer reading package in 2022, 2023, and 2024, various authors

• A Country Imperfectly Pulling Itself Together, by Robert Rubsam (3/24/2025, The Atlantic)

• 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)

CRITICISM

• Three Very Different Ways to Live Honestly (3/24/2025, The Atlantic)

• A Delightfully Frenetic Cult Classic: On Chloe Caldwell’s Women (2/28/25, The Atlantic)

• What a 16-Year-Old Doesn’t Yet Know (11/22/24, The Atlantic)

• The Knausgård Book That Deserves More Attention (10/24/24, The Atlantic)

• The Feeling That’s Hardest to Communicate: On Pain (9/6/2024, The Atlantic)

• What the Challenger Disaster Proved (6/7/24, The Atlantic)

• 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)

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)

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

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

• 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)