Anthologies
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Feminaissance | 2010 | Buy |
Non-Fiction
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Women, the New York School, and Other True Abstractions | 2007 | Buy |
| The Red Parts | 2007 | Buy |
| The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning | 2011 | Buy |
| The Argonauts | 2015 | Buy |
| On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint | 2021 | Buy |
| Like Love: Essays and Conversations | 2024 | Buy |
| The Slicks: On Sylvia Plath and Taylor Swift | 2025 | Buy |
Poetry Collections
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Shiner | 2001 | Buy |
| The Latest Winter | 2003 | Buy |
| Jane: A Murder | 2005 | Buy |
| Something Bright, Then Holes | 2007 | Buy |
| Bluets | 2009 | Buy |
| Pathemata, Or, The Story of My Mouth | 2025 | Buy |
Maggie Nelson writes nonfiction and poetry that refuses to stay in a single category. Her books move between memoir, philosophy, art criticism, and cultural theory, often within the same work. The Argonauts (2015), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and became a New York Times bestseller, blends autobiography with queer theory as Nelson writes about her relationship with the transgender artist Harry Dodge and her experience of pregnancy and family-making.
Bluets (2009), a meditation on the color blue structured as 240 numbered propositions, has become a cult classic and was named one of the top 10 books of the past 20 years by Bookforum. Her other nonfiction includes The Red Parts (2007), about the reopening of her aunt’s murder case, and The Art of Cruelty (2011), an investigation into violence in art. She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2016.
Nelson is also a published poet, with collections including Jane: A Murder (2005), which uses documentary poetry to explore her aunt’s life, and Shiner (2001), her debut. Her work consistently blurs the lines between genres, and she has become one of the most influential nonfiction writers of her generation.