i'm teaching 2 workshops this summer and you're invited
research, write, make, and reflect with me at ultralight school (NYC) and FWB Fest (Idyllwild, CA)
Culture
Personal Canon.
Celine Nguyen on literature, art, and cultural criticism.
Recent essays
24 of 24i used to think that novels were a waste of time
the question of taste ✦ stealing art from fictional museums ✦ and everything else I read in April–May 2026
everything i read in february & march 2026
and! my Dialectic podcast episode on creative fulfillment and the life of the mind ✦
everything i read in january 2026
what Substack can learn from James Joyce ✦ philosophy from Bergson to Zhuangzi ✦ and essays/paintings worthy of sustained attention
we've created a society where artists can't make any money
on artistic innovation, cultural stagnation, and the decline of Silicon Valley intellectualism
best books, essays, and poems of 2025
an invitation to read more in the new year ✦
writing is an inherently dignified human activity
the case for starting your own newsletter ✦ and reflections on 2 years, 52 posts, and 31,000 subscribers
everything i read in october & november 2025
do you really need to read all the books you buy? ✦ plus reviews of 2 excellent debut novels ✦ an Italian novella about rogue AI ✦ and an attempt to "read" "theory"
conversations with friends (on tech, culture, criticism, and bait)
my podcast conversation with the writer and technologist Jasmine Sun ✦
the occasional art report
the pros and cons of nostalgia, Wolfgang Tillmans, Korean ceramics, ideal translations, and the best show of Frieze London
how to speak to a computer
against chat interfaces ✦ a brief history of artificial intelligence ✦ and the (worthwhile) problem of other minds
everything i read in september 2025
novels & nonfiction about AI poetry, lost love, corporate anthropologists, and more ✦
everything i read in july & august 2025
15 books on love, communism, AIDS activism, and sleeping your way to the top
how to expand the market for literature (and literary criticism)
the personal and social function of criticism ✦ and why the humanities are not dead, thank you very much
exercises in style: bill beckley's "cake story"
short fiction and photography inspired by 1970s conceptual art ✦ and how to get started with flash fiction!
everything i read in june 2025
5 books about design, grief, spirituality and history ✦ and recent films from China, Taiwan and Vietnam
annie ernaux fixed my disintegrating attention span
the (almost) definitive ranking of Ernaux's books ✦ everything I read in March, April, and May 2025
no one told me about proust
on poptimism and literary snobs ✦ and why taste is cultivated through love, not education
in defense of san francisco's art scene
it's actually very easy to solve alienation, anomie, and the loneliness epidemic…just fund the arts more (and go to events more) ✦
everything i read in february 2025
3 novels and 2 films on love, despair, and loss ✦ and how to read Hannah Arendt for the first time
everything i read in january 2025
4 books on religion, health, work, art ✦
how to begin
on copying, technique and taste ✦ plus 6 close readings of great essay intros
best books of 2024
including novels, nonfiction, short stories and essays ✦✧
in praise of writing on the internet
one year, 34 posts, and 8,000 subscribers later ✦✧