Other Writing
Recent Short Fiction
FiveChapters.Com, “In the House of Desire, Honey, Marble, and Dreams“ (Winter, 2008)
Guernica, “The Deer-Vehicle Collision Survivors Support Group“ (February 2010)
Salon.com, Two-sentence holiday story(December 2013)
Salon. com, Two-sentence holiday story (November 2014)
CURA (reprinted from Immigrant Voices: a 21st Century Reader), “Mother The Big“ (March 2014)
A Kind of Compass (Tramp Press anthology), “City Inside” (Fall 2015)
Conjunctions, “Something With Everything” (Fall 2015 “Sleights of Hand” Deception Issue)
Bennington Review, “The Pariah & I” (inaugural issue, relaunch, Spring 2016)
American Short Fiction, “Kingdoms” (Summer 2016)
Gulf Coast, “When the Tide of Misfortune Hits Even Jelly Will Break Your Teeth” (Summer/Fall 2018)
Amazon Original Stories, “Parsnips in Love” (Oct 31, 2019)
Evergreen Review, The Iran Issue (spring/summer 2023)
Recent Nonfiction
(titles/headlines not written by me)
Washington Post Book World, Khashayar J. Khabushani’s I Will Greet the Sun Again (Aug 8, 2023)
Los Angeles Review of Books, “Super Rich Kids With Nothing But Fake Friends: On Nadia Lee Cohen’s Dream of LA” (October 2022 website, Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly Journal Fall 2022 )
Poets & Writers, Interview With Elif Batuman, (May/June 2022)
Los Angeles Review of Books, “Angeleno Mixed States” (April 28, 2022)
Bookforum, Interview with Asali Solomon (Fall 2021)
Poetry Foundation, “The Woman Who Came in From the Night” (Nazik al-Mala’ika collection review) (April 26, 2021)
BOMB, “A Mad Scientist: Mark Leyner Interviewed by Porochista Khakpour” (January 27, 2021)
Washington Post Book World, Michael J. Fox, No Time Like the Future (November 24, 2020)
Condé Nast Traveler, “My Love for Hong Kong Cinema Led to the Layover of My Dreams” (August, 24, 2020)
Bookforum, “Coeur Values: A New Book Tracks Frida Kahlo’s Paris Years“ (Summer 2020)
Condé Nast Traveler, “I Never Thought I’d Stop Traveling–Until My Body Forced Me to Take a Break” (February 24, 2020)
The Guardian, “In 2016, I Was All in For Hillary But Now I Am Feeling the Bern” (February 2, 2020)
Shondaland, “What is Ehlers-Danlos? And Does the Rare Chronic Illness Affect More Women than Previously Thought?”(Feb 21, 2020)
ZORA, “Iran, World War III, and the Jokes That Might Be, But Probably Aren’t, Funny” (Jan 2020)
New York Times Book Review, Leila Aboulela Elsewhere, Home (March 11, 2019)
Medium, WordsThatMatter2017: Doost/My Special Friend (December 2017)
Virginia Quarterly Review, Ackerphilia (Fall 2017)
Bookforum, Surreal Talk: The otherworldly magical writings of Leonora Carrington (Sept 2017)
Poets & Writers, Salman Rushdie cover story (September/October 2017)
Virginia Quarterly Review, Towards a New Masculinity: Five Poets and the Politics of the Male Body (Summer 2017)
BOMB, Lidia Yuknavitch Interviewed by Porochista Khakpour, (July 15, 2017)
Catapult, How to Write Iranian-America, or The Last Essay (May 18, 2017) [Longreads Top 5 pick]
The Guardian, Shirin Ebadi profile (April 25, 2017)
Virginia Quarterly Review, Unsettled: On Yiyun Li, Mental Illness, and Writing in the West (Spring 2017)
CNN, “Why This Persian New Year is Different” op-ed essay (March 20, 2017)
Lonely Planet Literary Anthology: True Stories From the World’s Best Writers (2016: “My Mississippi”/ 2017: “An Iranian-American in Indonesia”)
Literary Hub, “Portrait of the Artist as Debut Novelist” (from the Scratch anthology)
Bookforum, “Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: Three Books for Surviving Trump“ (Feb/Mar 2017 issue)
CNN, “How Can I Be a Refugee Twice?” op-ed essay (January 30, 2017)
GOOD, “Just (Don’t) Do It” essay (January 6, 2017, Issue 39)
Matter magazine, “My Body, My Selves” essay(only in print, autumn 2016)
Los Angeles magazine, Round Peg in a Persian Square essay(September 16, 2016)
Rolling Stone, “Ibtihaj Muhammad is America’s Olympic Game Changer,” interview(August 8, 2016)
The Village Voice, “Prince’s Women & Me: The Collaborators Who Inspired a Generation“ essay (April 27, 2016)
New York Times Book Review, Han Kang The Vegetarian (February 7, 2016)
Electric Literature, “Authors Remember David Bowie” essay(January 14, 2016)
Prairie Schooner, “Federer as Irreligious Experience” essay (winter 2015/2016, sports issue, print)
i-D, “On Gia Carangi’s Iconoclastic Bad Girl Spirit” (i-Con series) essay(December 17, 2015)
Elle magazine, Queen of the Night essay(December 2015 print)
The Scofield, “Love (13 Disambiguations)” essay (Issue 1.2)
Los Angeles Times Book Review, Ottessa Moshfegh Eileen (August 16, 2015)
The Barnes & Noble Review, Rediscovery Series: On Ben Okri’s The Famished Road essay(July 7, 2015)
Virginia Quarterly Review, My Life in the New Age essay(Summer 2015 issue)
Bookforum, On Alison C. Rose’s Better Than Sane essay (Summer 2015 issue)
Berlin Journal, “Not Your Ordinary American: Rivka Galchen’s American Innovations“ review(Fall 2014 issue, print Jan 2015)
Sunday Telegraph UK, Stella magazine “Tough Love’s Triumph” essay(January 11, 2015)
Los Angeles Times Book Review, Lindsey Hunter, Ugly Girls (December 19, 2014)
The Guardian, Top 10 Novels About 9/11 (December 17, 2014)
Refinery29, Amanda Palmer, The Art of Asking review & essay (November 24, 2014)
Los Angeles Times Book Review, Darcey Steinke, Sister Golden HairOctober 16, 2014)
Elle magazine, Smells Like Teen Spirit essay, (October 2014 print)
Los Angeles Times Book Review, William T. Vollmann, Last Stories (July 20, 2014)
Wall Street Journal, “Porochista Khakpour on an Over-the-Top Book Tour in Italy”essay (July 3, 2014)
New Yorker’s Pageturner, Inspiration Information: The Last Illusion essay(June 17, 2014)
Buzzfeed Books/Literary Mothers Project, Porochista Khakpour on Can Xue essay(May 12, 2014)
Elle Magazine, “Bleach Babe“ essay May 2014 (print)
New York Times Book Review, Helen Oyeyemi Boy, Snow, Bird (cover of Sunday NYTBR) (March 2, 2014)
Los Angeles Times Book Review, Chang-rae Lee On Such a Full Sea (January 5, 2013)
Al Jazeera America, “A Document Mule in the Internet Age,” essay(November 7, 2013)
Brownbook, “Welcome to Tehrangeles” essay (intro to Tehrangeles issue) (November 2013)
Los Angeles Times Book Review, Jhumpa Lahiri The Lowland(September29, 2013)
Spin Magazine, Mini Masters of Reality: Unlocking the Truth feature(September 12, 2013)
Poetry Foundation, Bird Chronicles essay(August 27, 2013)
GQ, Interview with Sasha Grey on occasion of debut novel (August 26, 2013)
Los Angeles Times Book Review, Aimee Bender The Color Master (August 11, 2013)
Nothing Major, Richard Kern/Shot By Kern: An Interview (July 24, 2013)
Los Angeles Review of Books, A Higher Joke: The Literary Pyrotechnics of Mohsin Hamid (July 6 2013)
Guernica, Waiting for Nasreen: Porochista Khakpour Interviews James Lasdun interview (Apri 1 2013)
New York Times, “On Crashing Allen Ginsberg’s Funeral” essay (January 25, 2013)
Slate, “Why Did Nancy Lanza Love Guns?” essay(December 17, 2012)
CNN, “Why HBO’s ‘Girls’ is Appealing” essay(April 14, 2012)
New York Times Arts & Leisure, “A New Persian Empire Plants a Personal Flag” essay (March 11, 2012)
New York Times Arts & Leisure, “Reality TV Goes Where Football Meets the Hijab” essay (November 13, 2011)
Out Magazine, “Cyber Drag” essay(Dec 2011/Jan 2012 double issue)
Guernica, “The Others” (introduction to the special Iranian-American issue, Khakpour edited and curated)(November 1, 2011)
Granta.com, “Today is a Sunny Day: Ten Years of Trying to Write About 9/11” essay(August 30, 2011)
Salon, “The King of Iranian-American Flash and Trash” essay (April 19, 2011)
The Paris Review Daily, “Dreams and Work: On ‘Light Years'” essay (April 6, 2011)
New York Times Op-Ed, “Ringing in the Year 1390” essay (March 20, 2011)
Guernica, “Camel Ride, Los Angeles, 1986” essay (Innovative Memoir Issue, February 2011)
Strangeland (Issue One), “Meography Lessons,” essay (fall/winter 2010, not available online)
The Rumpus, “This Book Will End Your Life: The Greatest Modern Persian Novel Ever Written” (reprint of the introduction to the new edition) (October 8, 2010)
New York Times Op-Ed, “My Nine Years as a Middle-Eastern American” essay(September 12, 2010)
Los Angeles Times, “Iranians Moving Past Negative Depictions in Pop Culture” essay (June 27, 2010)
New York Times Op-Ed, “Finally, ‘Thirtysomething?'” essay (August 23, 2009)
New York Times Op-Ed “Islamic Revolution Barbie” essay (March 9, 2009)
The Daily Beast (February 11, 2009) “What I Saw At the Revolution” essay (April 2009)
Canteen, “Autobiography of a Debut Writer: Eleven Snapshots of Literary Life” essay (Issue Three, 2008)
New York Times Summerscapes Series Op-Ed, “Pool Waters Run Deep” essay(July 20, 2008)
Nerve.com, “The 20-Year-Old Virgin” essay (2005)
(available in the Chronicle Books anthology Bad Sex: We Did It, So You Won’t Have To)
(PRE-INTERNET-ARCHIVE WRITING INCLUDES THE CHICAGO READER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, FLAUNT MAGAZINE, PAPER MAGAZINE, URB MAGAZINE, GEAR MAGAZINE, NYLON MAGAZINE, BET.COM, MTV.COM, VH1.COM., AND MUCH MORE]