For years, Mallett has been front and centre on what’s cool in the city and around the world. In this interview with Elephant, Jo Rosenthal dives into Mallett’s world to talk about authorship, aesthetics, and how to build a literary hive with a real sting.
If New York’s literary scene had a queen bee, Whitney Mallett would be buzzing at its centre, bold and relentlessly productive. A writer, editor, and cultural catalyst, Mallett is one of those long-time New Yorkers who has carved out a singular space with her irreverent wit and curiosity. Her work floats effortlessly between fiction and criticism, style and substance, always with a pulse on the city’s ever-morphing artistic landscape. But it’s The Whitney Review, her latest project – a play on her name and the institutional gravitas of the world around us, that has cemented her as a necessary, subversively glamorous force in contemporary literature.
More than just a publication and more than a woman (queue Aaliyah), both Mallett and The Whitney Review feel like an ecosystem: part salon, part zine, part literary insurgency, and part friend. In her life and work, Mallett amplifies voices that hover just outside the mainstream, offering them a platform that feels as much like a party as a page. Whether she’s curating speculative essays, off-the-beaten-path short fiction, or dispatches from fashion and film, her editorial sensibility channels the energy of the city itself: fearless and constantly flirting with the absurd.
What makes your latest editorial project meaningful to you?
It’s the second anniversary of releasing the first issue, a milestone! Right now, there’s no other literary magazine where you will encounter A.S. Hamrah and Honey Dijon, who both wrote reviews for the recent issue. I love that I’ve made an incredibly rigorous project, and both very different but extremely influential people make perfect sense being in it. I like the word “encounter.” There were essential encounters between people that made this recent issue possible or contributed to its creation. I love the encounters between the reviewer and the book, the reader and the review.
I met Venus Stevens at K8 Hardy’s birthday party this year. Both Venus and K8 became central to the issue. Venus wrote an essay called Sister Wifing the Self-Reflexive, which is at once a portrait of an emerging cohort of trans writers in New York while also giving language to new formal strategies for personal essay writing—Jamie Hood and Harron Walker being two masterful emerging writers that Venus writes about. The essay is about the importance of writing to writers.
Then K8 is in conversation with Sianne Ngai, a cult academic writer. K8 and Sianne didn’t know each other at all, but I proposed the pairing because both of them were needling into an idea of “taste.” What’s art, what’s literature, and what’s theory sometimes gets separated into these silos, and with The Whitney Review, I’m trying to make connections between disciplines that often are isolated.
I met Mark Iosifescu and Esra Padgett 18 years ago when I lived in Montreal. They were starting their band, Angels in America. Esra reconnected me to Mark, and he wrote a great essay about Peter Weiss’s novel Aesthetics of Resistance (a novel about anti-fascist organizing in 1930s Germany). Esra worked on this Brazzers book, which has also been reviewedin the issue. Politics and porn; writers who also perform. This is the vibe.
Ishmael Houston-Jones is a legendary dance choreographer and amazing writer. I’m excited he’s in the issue. I love intergenerational conversations. Ishmael is in conversation with Malcolm-x Betts and Nile Harris, who are totally in lineage with Ishmael. He’s been a trailblazer for the kind of work they’re making, and interpersonally, he’s been a mentor.
Bruce Benderson and Hedi El-Kholti are in conversation, and Michael Bullock wrote the intro. Michael invited me to Bruce’s writing workshop, which hugely influenced me. It was also a place where I met other writers who are part of The Whitney Review, like Dale Corvino. It’s all like a big family tree. Bruce and Hedi go way back but have been less in touch recently, and pairing them in the conversation is beautiful because it reconnects them.
I also know of a reviewer and novelist who started dating after one reviewed the other’s book for this issue! These intimacies and encounters are a big part of the grand narratives of art history and literary history. I’m always interested in reflecting on them, but I don’t want to ever be an insider or cliquey. I want to honour what’s important about the personal and lead with an inclusive, generous spirit.
What role do live events gatherings play in the publication’s life and community?
For every issue, I choose four keywords representing its content. However, I identify these words from what people have written about the problem rather than assigning them as a theme or prompt in advance. This issue is “improvisation, honesty, wreckage, and taste.”
I want the events to expand or replicate the vibe of the publication as it exists in print—stimulating but not pretentious or self-serious. I also love that creating this publication is a filter, and people self-select. The people who show up are smart, sexy, and friendly.
Do you think something happens at the live readings that the page alone can’t capture?
The medium is the message. Context is king. What makes a good piece on the page isn’t always what makes a good piece live. But they’re complementary for sure; they can work in harmony together.
Any moments from recent events that stood out?
On Saturday, we did an ensemble cast reading of Steven Phillips-Horst and Lily Marotta’s genius piece in the new issue. They conceived of an imagined roundtable conversation set in 2006 with celebrities and public intellectuals, like historical fiction and fan fiction. It’s about unpacking the James Frey scandal. Remember when it was revealed that he faked elements of his bestselling memoir, which Oprah had hyped up, and then she had him back on the show to chastise him? Frey has a new book out this summer, but also the power of the celebrity book club and the slippery nature of “truth” both feel very relevant to the present moment. We had a big group read the piece live. Nile Harris performed the role of Anthony Bourdain. Maya Martinez was Reese Witherspoon. Mekala Rajagopal was JK Rowling. Etc. The British accent went over very well. Rhea Dillon (the brilliant artist and writer who also contributed to the issue), who has a British accent herself, said she thought Mekala’s accent was real!
Could you share a few favourite lines or quotes from contributors in this new issue that stuck with you?
Nora Treatbaby, reviewing Lauren Cook’s I Love Shopping, has a passage I can’t stop thinking about:
“If most people practised being really, really honest with themselves about themselves, they would have incredibly interesting things to say.”
What was the editorial process like this time around—were there any unexpected challenges or surprises?
It’s always a nail-biter if I’m going to get the issues by the time of the launch. I’m simultaneously planning the launch and project, managing and proofreading the final layout. And I usually get the boxes hours before the party starts. I’m always really cutting it close.
How do you select contributors, and what kind of voices are you most excited to spotlight right now?
I want people to dig into whatever feels sticky. What’s the part about this book that gets under your skin? You can’t quite figure out why, so you’re talking to your friend at 3 am at the bar about it. Some contributors I’ve known for 10 or 15 years. Some I’ve never met, and they just email me. I’m excited about people who can cut through the noise and whose writing doesn’t feel TLDR but is instead clear, concise, and honest.
Looking ahead, are there any plans or visions for the future of The Whitney Review that readers and fans should be aware of?
Issue 6 will be out in November 2025. We have something planned in London for November. I think The Whitney Review will have more events in cities other than NYC next year.
What are you excited about in NYC this summer?
I love reading books outside in NYC in the summer. I live near the piers on the west side. Gentle sailboats punctuated every so often by the violent propeller noise of a helicopter delivering an insanely high net worth individual back from the Hamptons. And a view of New Jersey.
As a long-time New Yorker, can you tell us some spots you love?
I love 24/7 restaurants. I hate that some legendary late-night spots, like Veselka and Wo Hop, aren’t open that late anymore. But Chelsea Square Diner and Coppelia are two of my favourites, and they are still open 24/7!
P.S. I want to give a shout-out to do you read me?! who was our partner at the launch party. They are a Berlin-based bookshop that just opened its first NYC shop (on the first floor of the Swiss Institute), which is why we were able to hold our recent party there.
For more information on Whitney’s work, check out her Instagram page here and her website here.
Written by Jo Rosenthal
