Home / Lilly Dancyger

Salon • 12th April 2021

My parents were addicted to heroin, and I had a happy childhood. Both of these things are true

Another thing Audrey said that struck me as strange was, "I hope you have some positive memories of him." It took me a moment to realize what she meant, because I have almost exclusively positive memories of him.

6th April 2021

Making Art Out of Dead Things

The process of rotting in the woods was the last stage of the development of these pieces, like paint drying or glue setting; their destruction was their creation.

KHÔRA • 24th March 2021

Not a Memoir

Three years into the process, I was having trouble adjusting to the idea that I was writing a memoir. I didn’t want to write about myself, I wanted to write about my father. But I couldn’t seem to do one without the other. I wanted to make a book of his art, immortalized images printed cleanly next to the story of his life, a canonization.

Electric Literature • 11th March 2021

Canceling My Book Deal Was the Best Career Move I’ve Ever Made

I think this is a common author mindset: we get into a groove of asking to be let in, a groove so deep it becomes single-minded desperation. We become so fixated on getting the “yes” that we lose sight of the big picture, the real point: finding a publisher that will be a good steward for the work we’ve poured our heart and soul into. Someone we can trust with our life’s work.

3rd March 2021

Watching 'Wojnarowicz' as a Daughter of the East Village Art Scene

I was initially interested in the new documentary, Wojnarowicz, for the glimpse it promised into the 1980s East Village art scene–a time and place that holds great curiosity and sentimentality for me. David Wonarowicz was part of this same short-lived but long-influential art scene as my father, Joe Schactman.

CrimeReads • 15th May 2019

Don’t Use My Family For Your True Crime Stories - What it's like to watch true crime as the relative of a murder victim.

This summer, my cousin Sabina would have turned 30 years old. Instead, it will mark nine years since she was murdered. Though it’s been almost a decade, I’ve just very recently started writing about her, and her death. It always felt too raw, too sacred to pull apart for story fodder—even if I’m the one doing the telling. The thought of someone who didn’t even know her using the horrible, violent way she was taken from my family as “material” is unfathomable to me. This is what I think about whe

Harper's BAZAAR • 16th November 2020

'The Queen's Gambit' and the Dangerous Myth of Drug-Induced Genius

“The idea that the creative endeavor and mind-altering substances are entwined is one of the great pop-intellectual myths of our time,” author Stephen King, who struggled with addiction for years, wrote in On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. As the daughter of an artist with a drug addiction, seeing this myth perpetuated on The Queen’s Gambit almost ruined the show for me.

Electric Literature • 20th March 2020

My Book Comes Out Next Year. Do I Even Still Believe in Next Year?

Publishing a book is all about planning ahead. The book I worked on for a decade is coming out in May 2021—supposedly. That’s not so far away, but some days I’m not sure we’ll make it that far.

Longreads • 16th September 2019

It Comes in Waves

Years after her cousin was killed, Lilly Dancyger is haunted by images of murdered women in the news.

Catapult • 20th September 2019

Fallen Women (Catapult column)

A monthly column on women coded as villains in pop culture, the power in their badness, and how they shaped fans for good.

Ravishly • 5th March 2019

How T Kira Madden’s ‘Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls’ Made Me Stop Playing the Grief Olympics

The best memoirs are the ones that not only bring you into the experience of the writer but shift your understanding of yourself in the process. T Kira Madden’s debut, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls did this for me to a degree I’ve never experienced.

OFF ASSIGNMENT • 21st February 2019

In Search of Smoky Cafes: On Anais Nin’s diaries, the creative life, and (not) time-traveling in Paris

I understood of course that time had passed since the 1930s in Paris just like it had in New York, that many of the same problems likely existed there. But in a much more visceral way, it was easy to believe that the uncorrupted, smoky, jazz-filled utopia of Nin’s Paris was a real place I could travel to if I wanted it badly enough.

Catapult • 7th June 2018

How I Learned to Stop Judging And Love Insta-Witches

When I was thirteen, I discovered witchcraft. More accurately, I started paying attention to it. It had always been around me, in the silk-wrapped tarot deck on my mother’s dresser, and the sage she burned every time we moved into a new apartment. But when I was thirteen, I dove in and studied with a hunger and dedication I had never applied to anything before, and one that I never quite matched again; not even when I went to graduate school ten years later.

The Writer • 3rd January 2018

Personal Narratives in the Trump Era

As a writer and editor of personal narratives, I’ve been having a bit of an existential crisis since the 2016 presidential election. I’ve been wondering if there’s space for the personal and internal in a world so politically fraught; with people having their rights stripped away in new and horrifying ways every day, what place do I have reflecting on the past traumas, joys, and humiliations of my own life?

The Rumpus • 5th March 2018

Passing as Privileged (Excerpt from "Without A Net" Anthology)

As I awkwardly wiped condensation from my plastic cup of wine onto my dress slacks, it occurred to me that I’d done such a good job of making something of myself that I’d made my past invisible.

Narratively • 21st August 2017

The Man Who’s Been Fighting for Medicinal Psychedelics for 45 Years

A consensus is building that demonized drugs like LSD and MDMA have significant therapeutic value. Rick Doblin has been preparing for this moment since he was 18 years old.

Ravishly • 10th October 2017

Wearing Dead People’s Clothing

It’s not unusual to keep talismans of people we’ve lost — often jewelry given as gifts by the deceased while they were still alive, or sometimes inherited. Photographs, letters. But wearing a dead person’s clothing (not clothing that they gave to you while they were living, but articles that they put on their bodies while those bodies still breathed) provides a feeling of corporeal closeness that’s hard to replicate.

The Guardian • 25th July 2016

Spanking, caning and consent play: how feminist porn frees women from shame

According to feminist pornography producer Pandora Blake, who runs the fetish porn site Dreams of Spanking and frequently portrays fantasies of “non-consent”, the answer is a no-brainer. “Absolutely.”

Washington Post • 16th October 2017

I could have been the little boy in the overdose photos

A photo recently blazed across the Internet: an Ohio couple in a car, both passed out, having overdosed on opiates. The woman in the passenger’s seat is pale and ashen. Her head is lolled over to one side, her mouth agape. She looks dead. It’s a deeply disturbing image, even before you notice the child in a car seat behind her, looking right into the camera.

Playboy • 24th August 2017

The Real Reason Nobody is Talking About the DNC Fraud Lawsuit

Distrust of the mainstream media is not just an alt-right problem. Some on the left also believe that the major news outlets like the Washington Post and the New York Times are in the pocket of big government and are committed to telling us the party line.

Featured Clips

My parents were addicted to heroin, and I had a happy childhood. Both of these things are true

Making Art Out of Dead Things

Not a Memoir

Canceling My Book Deal Was the Best Career Move I’ve Ever Made

Watching 'Wojnarowicz' as a Daughter of the East Village Art Scene

Don’t Use My Family For Your True Crime Stories - What it's like to watch true crime as the relative of a murder victim.

'The Queen's Gambit' and the Dangerous Myth of Drug-Induced Genius

My Book Comes Out Next Year. Do I Even Still Believe in Next Year?

It Comes in Waves

Fallen Women (Catapult column)

How T Kira Madden’s ‘Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls’ Made Me Stop Playing the Grief Olympics

In Search of Smoky Cafes: On Anais Nin’s diaries, the creative life, and (not) time-traveling in Paris

How I Learned to Stop Judging And Love Insta-Witches

Personal Narratives in the Trump Era

Passing as Privileged (Excerpt from "Without A Net" Anthology)

The Man Who’s Been Fighting for Medicinal Psychedelics for 45 Years

Wearing Dead People’s Clothing

Spanking, caning and consent play: how feminist porn frees women from shame

I could have been the little boy in the overdose photos

The Real Reason Nobody is Talking About the DNC Fraud Lawsuit