Mychal Denzel Smith is a writer. His latest book is called Stakes is High: Life After the American Dream. It won the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction.
Mychal Denzel Smith is the author of the New York Times bestseller Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching and Stakes Is High, winner of the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction. He is a Puffin Fellow at Type Media Center, and Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Hunter College. Smith is host of the podcast “Open Form” on LitHub Radio. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Harper’s, Artforum, Oxford American, New Republic, The Nation, and more. In 2014 and 2016, TheRoot.com named him one of the 100 Most Influential African-Americans in their annual The Root 100 list. He was also a 2017 NAACP Image Award Nominee. Smith lives in Brooklyn.
Recent Publications
I’m Still Reckoning With What My Mother Told Me About Watches - Hodinkee 5/6/21
There’s Nothing Old-Fashioned About a Great Whiskey - Playboy 3/26/21
The Fun Police: Law Enforcement Comes to Carnival - New York Times 2/19/21
With Wine, It’s Always Half Full - Playboy 2/12/21
Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar - Playboy 1/15/21
In Defense of Letting Go of Black Icons (For Now) - Esquire 9/18/20
A Biden Win Won’t Cure My Trump-Era Depression - New York Times 9/11/20
I Miss My Black Barbershop. But It’s Not Just a Good Haircut I’m Longing For - TIME 9/1/20
Writers Will Decided How We Remember the Protests - GENMag 8/24/20
Incremental Change Is a Moral Failure - The Atlantic 8/6/20
‘This Is a Moment for Imagination’ Mychal Denzel Smith, Josie Duffy Rice, and Alex Vitale on the limits and opportunities of considering police abolition in an election year - Columbia Journalism Review 7/13/20
An NFL player says United ignored his reports of sexual assault. The problem's bigger than him. - NBC News Think 5/23/20
On Blackness, Pleasure, and the Cookout - Playboy 2/10/20
Carmelo Anthony is Good at His Job - GQ 1/14/20
LeBron James is No Socialist, But His New Nike Ad Makes a Good Case for Socialism - Esquire 12/23/19
Wu-Tang Clan’s “C.R.E.A.M.” Is Not the Capitalist Anthem You Think It Is - Pitchfork 9/10/19
Remembering Toni Morrison - The New Republic 8/7/19
Chosen History - Oxford American 6/11/19
Passive Resistance - The New Republic 2/14/19
Close-Up: Held Still - Artforum 2/1/19
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Doesn’t Have Time to ‘Learn the Job.’ Neither Did Shirley Chisholm - Esquire 1/17/19
The Gatekeepers - Harper’s 11/19/18
Speaking Events
TBA