Michael Quinn
  • About
  • Book Reviews Quinn on Books Gay Sensibility
  • Critical Influences
  • Script Doctor
  • Personal & Reported Essays
  • Interviews
  • Contact

Michael Quinn

  • About/
  • Cultural Criticism/
    • Book Reviews
    • Quinn on Books
    • Gay Sensibility
  • Critical Influences/
  • Script Doctor/
  • Personal & Reported Essays/
  • Interviews/
  • Contact/
Book Collage Photo Credit Michael Quinn.JPG

Michael Quinn

Critical Influences

Michael Quinn

  • About/
  • Cultural Criticism/
    • Book Reviews
    • Quinn on Books
    • Gay Sensibility
  • Critical Influences/
  • Script Doctor/
  • Personal & Reported Essays/
  • Interviews/
  • Contact/

Critical Influences is a blog about things that interest me personally—exploring how being gay shapes how I see the world.

I’m a Brooklyn-based professional critic, essayist, and storyteller writing about books, film, fashion, and more.

This is the place where I play with ideas, trace the root of my obsessions, and connect the dots between culture and identity.

What stories—or obsessions—have shaped you?


September 01, 2025

Naming What Matters: Nan Goldin, Peter Hujar, and Power of the Particular

September 01, 2025/ Michael Quinn
Naming What Matters: Nan Goldin, Peter Hujar, and Power of the Particular

Their cameras didn’t just capture people—they revealed relationships.

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September 01, 2025/ Michael Quinn/ Comment
art criticism, book reviews, critical influences, cultural criticism, LGBTQ+, New York City, places & spaces, photography, art & identity
August 12, 2025

My Letter to "The New Yorker" on Green-Wood Cemetery

August 12, 2025/ Michael Quinn
My Letter to "The New Yorker" on Green-Wood Cemetery

This week, The New Yorker published my letter to the editor about Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery, a place I walk through weekly, finding new things to discover each time.

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August 12, 2025/ Michael Quinn/
New York City, Brooklyn, places & spaces, cultural criticism, critical influences, book reviews, nature
Brooklyn, New York City, Cultural criticism, Personal & reported essays, Green-Wood Cemetery, Cemeteries & memorials, Urban green spaces, Historic landmarks, Arboretums, The New Yorker, Letters to the editor, Michael Quinn Brooklyn, Michael Quinn Green-Wood, Green-Wood Cemetery Brooklyn, Red Hook Star-Revue, Brooklyn Arcadia, Andrew Garn

Critical Influences photo credit: Michael Quinn

© 2018-2025 Michael Quinn