Coming spring 2027 from Duke University Press
“One of America’s drollest, most insightful cultural observers, Dan Kois is at once a sharp reporter and a generous-hearted participant. In this funny, affecting collection of personal essays about the hunt for creativity, Kois paints a glorious portrait of a country of ordinary people as artists, deep in the struggle to build something truly beautiful and new."
–Emily Nussbaum, New Yorker critic and author of I Like to Watch and Cue the Sun!
“A masterclass in essay writing. These pieces are filled with effervescent humor, sharp cultural analysis, and a deep and abiding curiosity about art, about how it is made and how we consume it. They are also tremendously fun to read.”
–Mark O’Connell, author of A Thread of Violence and To Be a Machine
“Much like the quixotic subjects of his acutely observed, companionably funny essays, Dan Kois invites us along on adventures we’d have never thought to go on ourselves—tragicomic tours of late-capitalist aesthetics; off-handedly profound journeys to the creative imagination’s outer limits—but by which we are forever changed.”
–Megan O'Grady, author of How It Feels to Be Alive: Encounters With Art and Our Selves
Announcing the Jonathan Farmer/Dan Kois Double Book Tour
Two great university press books, two old friends, one great conversation! Join Dan Kois (Where Is the Light Coming From, Duke University Press) and Jonathan Farmer (Lyndon Johnson: A Poem, LSU Press)—former college roommates—for a spirited discussion about history, criticism, Great Men, Giant White Houses, and superpowered presidential showers.
WASHINGTON, DC: March 21, Politics & Prose Connecticut Ave.
CHAPEL HILL, NC: March 25, Flyleaf Books
BROOKLYN, NY: March 29, Books Are Magic Montague St.