I am a writer and teacher.
I write literary criticism, reviews, essays, and the occasional reported feature or profile. My work has appeared in The New Yorker, the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, and The Nation, among other publications. Please see here for a list of selected publications.
The Equivalents, my first book, was published in May 2020. It's about a group of female artists and writers who came together at the Radcliffe Institute in the early 1960s. The book describes their creative lives and artistic collaborations and how these things shaped and were shaped by the women's liberation movement. You can read more from Claire Messud in the New York Times, Ruth Franklin in Harper's, Margaret Atwood in the Globe and Mail, and others. The Equivalents won the Marfield Prize for Arts Writing and was named a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography.
I've been an instructor at Harvard for the past seven years. During this time, I've taught small seminars in history and literature as well as courses in expository writing at Harvard College. I've also taught courses in journalism and creative writing at the Harvard Extension School. (Please see here for sample undergraduate and graduate courses.) I have also advised senior theses and served as an academic advisor. I've taught students at all levels, from first-year undergraduates to master's students.
I graduated from Harvard's doctoral program in English in May of 2015.
If you'd like to contact me, I can be reached at magsrdoherty@gmail.com.