JOAN DIDION

The archives of the late Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne have been acquired by the New York Public Library.

Eighties throwbacks, new Netflix series, a bird board game, and kids' music that isn't by Raffi

A California exhibition curated by Hilton Als commemorates Didion’s life and work, with contributions from a variety of notable artists.

On Dec. 23, 1788, Maryland passed an act to cede an area “not exceeding ten miles square” for the seat of the national government; about two-thirds of the area became the District of Columbia. In 1783, George Washington resigned as commander in chief of the Continental Army and retired to his home at Mount Vernon, Virginia. In 1823, the poem “Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas” was published in the Troy (New York) Sentinel; the verse, more popularly known as ”‘Twas the Night Before Christmas,” was later attributed to Clement C. Moore.

Mythology came long ago for the celebrated writer; now it’s coming for her belongings.

Reading alone can’t take away the pain, but prose can be part of one’s internal healing.

Joan Didion, a master of rhythm and of the meaning of the unsaid, was remembered Wednesday as an inspiring and fearless writer and valued, exacting and sometimes eccentric friend.

A visit to the L.A. writer’s newly opened archives reveals how she constructed her unique public persona.

Caitlin Flanagan asks the greatest question of Didion’s lifetime: What was it that gave her such power?

I visited the writer’s California homes, from Berkeley to Malibu. What was I looking for?

Are precautions still needed as endemicity seems to come into view?

She knew that her country was built on exclusion and shame.

You didn’t have to agree with her, but you had to submit to her sentences.

In the face of the failure of narrative to make sense of life, she found meaning in the particular.

The singular writer, who has died at eighty-seven, started contributing to the magazine after famously leaving its namesake city.

The prolific writer, who died today at 87, was a penetrating anthropologist of American myths.

When Didion started writing in 1960s, she put a certain kind of voice on the page — neurotic, female — that hadn't been there before.

Joan Didion, the revered author and essayist whose provocative social commentary and detached, methodical literary voice made her a uniquely clear-eyed critic of a uniquely turbulent time, has died.