Margaret Talbot is an American journalist and nonfiction writer.^[1] She is the daughter of the veteran Warner Bros. actor Lyle Talbot, whom she profiled in an October 2012 article of The New Yorker and in her book The Entertainer: Movies, Magic and My Father's Twentieth Century (Riverhead Books, 2012).^[2] She is also the co-author with her brother David Talbot of a book about political activists in the 1960s, By the Light of Burning Dreams (HarperCollins, 2021).^[3]

She is a staff writer at The New Yorker.^[4] She has also written for The New Republic,^[5] The New York Times Magazine,^[6] and The Atlantic Monthly.^[7] and was a regular panelist on the Slate podcast "The DoubleX Gabfest".^[8][9]

Her first book, The Entertainer: Movies, Magic, and My Father's Twentieth Century, was published in November 2012 by Riverhead.

Her second book, co-authored with brother David, "By the Light of Burning Dreams: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Second American Revolution," was published in June 2021 by HarperCollins.

She was formerly a Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation.^[10]

Her brother Stephen Talbot is a public television documentary producer.^[11] Filmmaker Joe Talbot is her nephew.

• 1999 Whiting Award

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (April 2015)

• Talbot, Margaret (2012). The entertainer: movies, magic, and my father's Twentieth Century. Riverhead.
• Talbot, David & Margaret Talbot (2021). By the light of burning dreams: the triumphs and tragedies of the second American revolution. New York: Harper.

• Talbot, Margaret (January 9, 2000). "The placebo prescription". Magazine. The New York Times.
• — (February 24, 2002). "Girls just want to be mean". Magazine. The New York Times.
• — (March 30, 2003). "A woman's work?". Magazine. The New York Times.
• — (November 3, 2008). "Red sex, Blue sex". Dept. of Disputation. The New Yorker.
• — (April 27, 2009). "Brain gain: the underground world of 'neuroenhancing' drugs". A Reporter at Large. The New Yorker.
• — (January 2, 2012). "Stumptown Girl". Onward and Upward with the Arts. The New Yorker. 87 (42): 24–29.^[a]
• — (April 16, 2012). "Girls will be Girls". The Talk of the Town. Comment. The New Yorker. 88 (9): 39–40.^[b]
• — (March 11, 2013). "Higher authorities". The Talk of the Town. Comment. The New Yorker. 89 (4): 17–18.
• — (March 18, 2013). "About a boy: transgender surgery at sixteen". A Reporter at Large. The New Yorker. 89 (5): 56–65.
• — (April 15, 2013). "Shots in the dark". The Talk of the Town. Comment. The New Yorker. 89 (9): 21–22.
• — (May 13, 2013). "Game change". The Talk of the Town. Comment. The New Yorker. 89 (13): 21–22.
• — (October 21, 2013). "Gone girl: the extraordinary resilience of Elizabeth Smart". American Chronicles. The New Yorker. 89 (33): 32–38.
• — (October 28, 2013). "Home movies: Alexander Payne, High Plains auteur". Profiles. The New Yorker. 89 (34): 50–59.
• — (January 12, 2015). "The talking cure". Annals of Education. The New Yorker. 90 (43): 38–47.
• — (February 16, 2015). "Not immune". The Talk of the Town. Comment. The New Yorker. 91 (1): 19–20.
• — (December 19–26, 2016). "Women in the White House". The Talk of the Town. Comment. The New Yorker. 92 (42): 43–44.
• Talbot, Margaret & Philip Montgomery (October 30, 2017). "Faces of an epidemic: in Montgomery County, Ohio, opioid addiction permeates everyday life". Portfolio. The New Yorker. 93 (34): 50–59.^[c]
• Talbot, Margaret (April 2, 2018). "Dirty politics: Scott Pruitt's E.P.A. is giving even ostentatious polluters a reprieve". A Reporter at Large. The New Yorker. 94 (7): 38–51.^[d]
• — (February 11, 2019). "Not working". The Talk of the Town. Comment. The New Yorker. 94 (48): 15–16.^[e]
• — (June 3, 2019). "No mercy". The Talk of the Town. Comment. The New Yorker. 95 (15): 15–16.^[f]
• — (November 18, 2019). "The pivotal Justice". Profiles. The New Yorker. 95 (36): 36–49.^[g]
• — (September 20, 2021). "The real Roe: what we can learn from the all-too-human plaintiff behind Roe v. Wade". The Critics. Books. The New Yorker. 97 (29): 66–71.^[h]
• — (September 27, 2021). "A necessary right". The Talk of the Town. Comment. The New Yorker. 97 (30): 21–22.^[i]
• — (September 5, 2022). "The last word: Justice Samuel Alito's crusade against a secular America isn't over". Profiles. The New Yorker. 98 (27): 24–37.^[j]

• Matt Ridley, ed. (2002). The Best American Science Writing 2002. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-093650-1.
• Talbot, Margaret (2005). "Material girls". In Peri, Camille & Kate Moses (eds.). Because I said so: 33 mothers write about children, sex, men, aging, faith, race, and themselves. HarperCollins.

• Margaret Talbot
• Profile at The Whiting Foundation