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November 11, 2026
Dear readers,
Unfortunately I made a mistake in my Paragraph of the Week about Patrick Madden's book Recenses/Recencies. I accidentally chose a paragraph by the late Brian Doyle that Madden used as a quotation in his text. I apologize to both of these authors and my readers for this error. It is my hope that Doyle and Madden--who clearly felt a mutual admiration and share the same ideas about the role of playfulness in the essay--will not mind being mistaken for each other on the page. I have removed the feature but hope to return to Madden's very important book later this year. We will feature a different author on Friday.
--Steve Harvey
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The Humble Essayist
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Announcements
The Beloved Republic Recognized
by the PEN Award Series
The Beloved Republic has been selected for the Longlist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay.
PEN International is a worldwide association of writers, founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere. The association has autonomous International PEN centres in more than 100 countries.
Other goals include emphasizing the role of literature in the development of mutual understanding and world culture; fighting for freedom of expression, and acting as a powerful voice on behalf of writers harassed, imprisoned and sometimes killed for their views.
See the trailers below to learn more about the book.
The Beloved Republic by Steven Harvey
Available at Bookstores and Online
See more at the author's website and check out our video trailers here.
The Humble Essayist Press
Closes Book Publication Arm
The Humble Essayist Press has always needed to stay humble in its ambitions, and with the publication of our final book, Time's Passage by Robert Root, the passage of time has brought the book publication arm of the Humble Essayist Press to an end. Its editors have set off on other composing and editing projects with much appreciation and admiration for the texts that THE Press was allowed to bring into the world. We hope those books continue to have readers and to those authors we urge, “Write on.” Thanks so much for giving us what you did.
All of the press's publications are still available. You can find them here. The Humble Essayist will still carry on and continue to feature the Paragraph of the Week.
