The Art of the Profile

On October 26, 2025, the New Yorker unit writers Larissa MacFarquhar, Rebecca Mead, Ian Parker, Kelefa Sanneh, and Michael Schulman joined the enforcement exertion Daniel Zalewski onstage astatine the 26th yearly New Yorker Festival, a play of conversations, screenings, performances, and more. The Festival, which is the magazine’s signature event, was held successful New York City and brought unneurotic starring voices successful literature, film, comedy, television, politics, and medicine.

Larissa MacFarquhar has been a unit writer astatine The New Yorker since 1998. She has written astir child-protective services, the battered-women’s movement, dementia, and hospice care, and her illustration subjects person included Barack Obama, Noam Chomsky, and Hilary Mantel, among galore others. She is the writer of “Strangers Drowning: Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Urge to Help.” Before joining the magazine, she was a elder exertion astatine Lingua Franca and an advisory exertion astatine The Paris Review. She has received 2 Front Page Awards from the Newswomen’s Club of New York and the Johnson & Johnson Excellence successful Media Award. Her penning has appeared successful “The Best American Political Writing” and “The Best American Food Writing.”

Rebecca Mead joined The New Yorker arsenic a unit writer successful 1997. She has profiled galore subjects, among them Lin-Manuel Miranda, Margaret Atwood, Jesse Armstrong, and Mary Beard. She is the writer of respective books, including “My Life successful Middlemarch,” a New York Times best-seller, and “Home/Land: A Memoir of Departure and Return.” She has served arsenic a McGraw Professor of Writing astatine Princeton University and was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, successful 2020. She lives successful London, and has written astir cold-water swimming successful the U.K., scandals astatine the British Museum, and the Cerne Abbas Giant.

Ian Parker contributed his archetypal portion to The New Yorker successful 1992, and became a unit writer for the mag successful 2000. He has profiled a scope of taste figures, including the Apple plan main Jonathan Ive, the filmmaker Ken Burns, the writer James Fenton, the lensman Sebastião Salgado, the writer Christopher Hitchens, the vocalist Elton John, the historiographer Yuval Noah Harari, the novelist Daniel Mallory, the designer Norman Foster, and the New York politician Eric Adams. His nonfiction “The Gift,” successful 2004, received the National Magazine Award for Profile Writing. Previously, helium was a tv professional for the London Observer, a writer and an exertion for the Independent, and a contributing writer for Talk. He lives successful New York.

Kelefa Sanneh has been contributing to The New Yorker since 2001, and has been a unit writer since 2008. He is the writer of “Major Labels: A History of Popular Music successful Seven Genres,” and is simply a contributor to “CBS Sunday Morning.” Previously, helium worked arsenic the pop-music professional astatine the New York Times and arsenic the lawman exertion of Transition, a diary of contention and culture. His penning has appeared successful respective magazines and books, including “Shake It Up: Great American Writing connected Rock and Pop from Elvis to Jay Z” and aggregate volumes of “Da Capo Best Music Writing.” He lives successful New York City with his family.

Michael Schulman, a unit writer, has contributed to The New Yorker since 2006, penning chiefly astir arts and culture. His illustration subjects person included the comedian Bowen Yang, the manager Ridley Scott, the talk-show big Wendy Williams, and the actors Patti LuPone, Adam Driver, Elisabeth Moss, and Jeremy Strong. He has written much than a 100 Talk of the Town pieces and contributed long-form interviews with specified subjects arsenic Linda Ronstadt, Robert De Niro, Fran Lebowitz, Maya Rudolph, and Mel Brooks. He is the writer of the best-selling biography “Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep” and “Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood successful Gold, Sweat, and Tears,” a New York Times Notable Book of 2023.

Daniel Zalewski is an enforcement exertion astatine The New Yorker. He edits the enactment of galore of the magazine’s unit writers, including Jane Mayer, Patrick Radden Keefe, David Grann, Rebecca Mead, Luke Mogelson, and Lawrence Wright. Previously, helium was an exertion astatine the Times Magazine and Lingua Franca. For The New Yorker, helium has contributed profiles of specified figures arsenic Ian McEwan, Guillermo del Toro, and Werner Herzog, and has besides written astir subjects ranging from amnesia to creation restoration.