Day 12: "1978"

Amy Margolis (The Iowa Review, Spring 2023)

In this twenty-two-day series, we are counting down the days to publication (October 22, 2024) with a brief passage from each of the twenty-two essays included in The Best American Essays 2024. These excerpts were curated by Best American Essays Editorial Assistant Cheyenne Paterson and are presented in the order of the volume’s table of contents.

“I’m a dancer. I spend my days with men in leotards, like me. We’re shapes in a mirror. I spend my days with women who starve themselves pitilessly. They want badly to escape gravity. I want to hold fast to the floor. I want to feel something like weight. I want to land.”

—Amy Margolis, “1978,” The Iowa Review, Spring 2023.