Even on the Moon, where time runs slower, clocks don’t stand still. Nothing stays static on Earth, either—in the words of Maggie Nelson, though we thrill at a momentary discovery, “a moment is [just] one moment.” This year, we’ve traced time’s riches and robberies: from menopause as modern epic to hot flashes of summer rage; from monster mothers to reality’s secret matrix and galactic elders still searching for new worlds of sound; from the weight of thoughts to the memories of rivers; from Garth Greenwell’s boyhood in Kentucky to the inner lives of artificial minds; and, in a final reckoning, some poems on death and dying from the one and only Eileen Myles.

Below are some of our favorite pieces from 2025—many of which appear in our third annual print issue, which also features work by Catherine Lacey, Chris Kraus, Jamieson Webster, and many more.

“I don’t write books to be a writer, you know? It’s just to get through this.”⁠

Last spring, we teamed up with McNally Jackson Books to co-present the launch of All Fours, where Miranda July and Elif Batuman dove into love-plot fatigue, meditation retreats, and the question of whether 8½, The Inferno, and Don Quixote might actually be menopause stories.⁠ We were delighted to include the conversation in our third print issue, and to read Elif’s 4,000-word ode to Miranda on her glorious Substack.

Streams, tumbling across time and toward the sea, have memories too. Robert Macfarlane reflects on the fragile majesty of the waterways that have shaped our world.

Do LLMs really understand? Do nonliving machines have inner lives? To cut through the noise around AI, we brought in two experts shaping the field: Adam Brown and Yann LeCun. In a special episode of Scientific Controversies, LeCun and Brown joined our co-editor-in-chief, Janna Levin, to unpack how these systems work, what they can and can’t do, and whether they’re anywhere close to thinking the way we do.

The inimitable writer shares an ode to the season that scorches: “It was all those cars, all those drugs, all that red meat, all that money it sucked up and vaporized. Summer only remembers luxury and rage.” This poem initially appeared as part of our Heat Week collection, alongside contributions by Bill McKibben on shade’s fragile mercy, Lauren Markham on the edge of paradise, Emily Raboteau on heat’s quiet violence, and more.

We’ve heard the warnings: children will drain your time, your money, and your focus. But what might a writer gain from motherhood? Could maternity be the beginning of narrative, rather than its terminus? Kate Shannon Jenkins considers the creative perils and promises of mothering.

“My whole aesthetic practice is predicated on if something is too much, you do more of it.” Writer Garth Greenwell speaks with Jordan Kisner about gay boyhood in Kentucky, the hard-won gifts of his artistic ruthlessness, and if art retains its value when everything else falls away.

Are we all in a computer simulation? Theoretical physicist Dr. Sylvester James Gates Jr. writes on how Adinkras—geometric tools named after West African symbols—chart subatomic worlds and map the hidden patterns of reality. In his words: “I take great pleasure in being tagged to find, with the help of these Adinkras, truths no one else has.”

“Perversities can be compatible, but then perversities are not static. We all change.” Maggie Nelson talks with Broadcast editor Lucy McKeon about dreams, sex, anxiety, and The Argonauts, 10 years later.

On the Moon, time runs faster. But as our ambitions to explore the solar system grow, so does our need for a clock made for space. Elise Cutts untangles the complicated physics of lunar time.

The brain is the only organ that can consider itself. No heavier than two clenched fists, it nonetheless carries the weight of consciousness itself. Directed by Tom McNamara and co-written by Janna Levin and Michael Jones, SCALE considers: What is the true measure of a thought?

“None of this is hard work for me. It’s just writing emails to your friends and reading poetry. I don’t know what else I do.” From expiring cats to Hitler’s bathroom, the inimitable writer shares the terminal poetry they like best.

This year, we welcomed the Sun Ra Arkestra to Pioneer Works for a special performance—and we were lucky to get Marcus J. Moore to write on the group’s galactic elder, Marshall Allen. At 101 years young, Allen “still harbors the inferno of years past” and continues to seek new worlds of sound. ♦