Larissa Pham is an artist and writer in Brooklyn.
Her collection of essays on art and intimacy,
Pop Song, was published by Catapult in 2021.
Pop Song was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard prize, and was listed as a best book of the year by
TIME, NPR, and elsewhere.
She is also the author of the novella
Fantasian, published by Badlands Unlimited in 2016.
She writes essays and criticism on topics including gender, race, sex, visual culture, communication theory, identity formation, art history, and any intersection of the above.
Her writing has appeared in
The Nation, the
New York Times Book Review,
Bookforum,
Art in America,
Granta, and elsewhere. Her essays and short fiction have been anthologized in
Kink, an anthology of erotic short fiction (Simon and Schuster, 2021);
Wanting: Women Writing on Desire (Catapult, 2023); and
Critical Hits, an anthology of writing on video games (Graywolf, 2024).
She holds an MFA in fiction from the Bennington Writing Seminars.
Previously, she worked at the New York City Anti-Violence Project, where she focused on messaging and education around the systemic underpinnings of bias-motivated and intimate partner violence, and where she received training on disability justice and vicarious trauma. She has consulted on and provided editorial support to projects related to pop culture; gender, sexuality, and queerness; Asian American, diasporic, and immigrant identity; and mental health and wellness.
She paints occasionally, performs occasionally, and teaches occasionally. She writes poems and makes them move with code at her project
poem club.
Books
Pop Song: Adventures in Art and Intimacy“Pham’s debut book is a brave, shrewd work of artistic and cultural criticism, exploring the ways we filter raw love and heartbreak through our encounters with music, art and other experiences.” -The New York Times Book Review
Fantasian, A New Lovers novella
“A meditation on power and the self.” -Electric Literature
Selected Writing
Devil in the Details, a column about the single object—mattresses, bathrooms, the color orange—in art history. The
Paris Review Daily, 2019.
Agnes Martin Finds the Light That Gets Lost, an essay about New Mexico, Agnes Martin, and chasing after the distance embodied in the color blue. The
Paris Review Daily, 2017.
The Limits of the Viral Book Review, an examination of modern literature’s defensive stance and the type of criticism that engenders paranoid writing.
The Nation, 2020.
A Larger Life, a critique of media’s reliance upon trauma-based narratives and the duty we have, as storytellers, to survivors.
The Nation, 2016.
The Gleaners and I and I, an essay on cinema and partnership. Criterion
Current, 2021.
Ghost Boyfriend, a short story published in the first issue of
Triangle House Review, 2018.
On “Cat Person” and the importance of critical thinking, an essay about reading and politics. The
Village Voice, 2017.
Abject Permanence, an essay commissioned for the magazine
Unruly Bodies, edited by Roxane Gay, 2018.
Our Victim-Blaming Culture, an interview and discussion about campus rape culture with Vanessa Grigoriadis.
Guernica Magazine, 2017.
House on Fire, a personal essay about blood, sex, obsession, and ghosts.
Adult Magazine, 2014.
Projects
poem club, an experimental collaboration of text, image, and code. 2018-ongoing
camera roll, a painting series, 2018
intimacies, a letter series, 2016-2021
