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/

A blog that feels its way through the fog of ideas.

Short dispatches on the things that shape my ideas as a writer, critic, and human being.


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
February 08, 2025

The Critics Who Shaped Me

February 08, 2025/ Michael Quinn
The Critics Who Shaped Me

"Oh, so you’re the one all the writers are afraid of!"

That wasn’t how I saw my role at all. In fact, the idea had never crossed my mind. Suddenly, I felt like a great big monster with no idea how ugly he is until people start screaming and running away.

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February 08, 2025/ Michael Quinn/
critical influences, literary criticism, book reviews, cultural criticism, film
literary criticism, book criticism, book reviews, how to read critically, influence of critics, Pauline Kael, Annette Insdorf, how critics shape reading, best film critics, reading like a critic, book reviewers’ influences, queer literary criticism, LGBTQ+ book critics, cultural criticism, LGBTQ+ books, Michael Quinn, mastermichaelquinn.com

Critical Influences photo credit: Michael Quinn

© 2018-2025 Michael Quinn