Welcome to "Back Matter"

A new companion to America’s oldest "little" magazine

We are The Yale Review. If you don’t know us: we’re the country’s oldest quarterly magazine of literature, ideas, and public life. Since 1819, we’ve brought writers and readers into conversation across backgrounds, disciplines, and generations, publishing everyone from Virginia Woolf, President William H. Taft, and Bayard Rustin, to, more recently, Cathy Park Hong, Chris Ware, and Namwali Serpell. We like to say we’re the oldest “little magazine”—but we’re still asking the biggest questions.

Back Matter is our new Substack—a place where that conversation continues, off the page and with you. Since our 2019 relaunch under editor Meghan O’Rourke, we’ve worked to build community through literature and ideas: in print, online, and at our annual festival in New Haven. Back Matter is a new kind of gathering space—for curious readers, lifelong learners, and writers of every stripe.

Here, you’ll find:

• writing prompts inspired by our pages;

• notes from the editing desk;

• reading recommendations;

• archival finds;

• musings on craft;

• and soon, recordings from our live events!

Back Matter offers something new: a slightly looser, more conversational way to be part of The Yale Review community.

Our archive inspired us to launch Back Matter. In its early years, the magazine included a recurring feature called Library of the Quarter—later Reader’s Guide—where editors shared what they were reading and thinking about. Back Matter picks up that tradition, but with a broader, more open-ended scope. We hope you’ll join us.

Early editions of The Yale Review included “The Library of the Quarter,” a list of book recommendations from the editors.

You can continue to read The Yale Review online without a paywall, and our weekly newsletters will keep you up to date on new essays, poems, and reviews, as well as issue launches and archival highlights. (We suggest you sign up for it, if you haven't yet, as it is the best way to follow the work we publish.)

Sign up to receive free posts—plus, in time, subscriber-only content, such as select recordings from our festival and public events. We’re so glad you’re here.

We’d love to hear from you. Tell us what you’re reading, what you’re writing, or what you’d like to see here. Drop a comment below.