A Metafilter for essays?

January 17, 2007 2:23 PM

A site where people write essays on a wide range of topics. Sort of like Metafilter, but less about the links and more about quality opiniated writing. Does any such site exist ?

If not, let's make one. :)

posted by goodnewsfortheinsane to Media & Arts (16 answers total)

Maybe this one?
posted by keep it tight at 2:24 PM on January 17, 2007

kuro5hin? Good in theory, less so in practice.
posted by GuyZero at 2:25 PM on January 17, 2007

Well, this isn't a site where people on the site write essays, but I have loved Arts and Letters Daily, which links to great essays on a variety of topics.
posted by jayder at 2:46 PM on January 17, 2007

The Guardian's trying at Comment Is Free, but the comments are full of morons and the writing is wildly patchy, since they refuse to edit.
posted by bonaldi at 2:48 PM on January 17, 2007

I really like Printculture, which is sort of a group blog by a group of (mostly) academics in the humanities, but with longish pieces that read more like short essays than extended blog posts.
posted by escabeche at 2:55 PM on January 17, 2007

Another well written and oft recommended blog is 3 Quarks Daily. High quality (and sometimes opinionated) summaries. Good links. Cool topics. One of the more magazine-style blogs that I read.
posted by zpousman at 3:03 PM on January 17, 2007

I think zpousman means 3 Quarks Daily... looks fascinating actually.
posted by snap, crackle and pop at 3:12 PM on January 17, 2007

aldaily.com is a clearinghouse for what you're looking for. It doesn't write the content itself, but links to interesting essays/articles on the web. (I know you said you're not looking for links, but I think you'll be pleased.)
posted by Brian James at 3:26 PM on January 17, 2007

A second on kuro5hin but it has gone a lot downhill since its first heady days so I've stopped reading it. Might be interesting to read the older material; you may even find two articles on there by me...
posted by polyglot at 4:16 PM on January 17, 2007

Not Kuro5hinhttp://www.lrb.co.uk/.

There's always the London Review of Books.
posted by Gyan at 5:40 PM on January 17, 2007

Of course, this is the right link.
posted by Gyan at 5:41 PM on January 17, 2007

How about everything2?
posted by exceptinsects at 10:41 PM on January 17, 2007

http://www.politicaltheory.info/

http://www.scitechdaily.com/
posted by rumbles at 10:54 PM on January 17, 2007

Some good suggestions here, though many are aggregators of outside essay links rather than sites whose contributors write their own stuff. 3 Quarks Daily is probably closest to what you're looking for.

If you're willing to define "essay" a bit liberally, some other blogs that often have longish, essay-like posts on eclectic topics are: 2 Blowhards, Catallarchy, the Valve, and Crooked Timber.
posted by Urban Hermit at 12:27 AM on January 18, 2007

AL Daily is very conservative. Not like you. Good essays sometimes, but depressingly conservative, and written by professional writers, which doesn't sound like what you're looking for.
posted by OmieWise at 6:05 AM on January 18, 2007

3quarks daily is spectacularly good. 4thing recommendation.
posted by lalochezia at 9:50 AM on January 18, 2007