Writing alum Naomi Falk ’17 published her debut book, The Surrender of Man, in April 2025 with independent press Inside the Castle. The project is preoccupied with the experience of encountering art. To capture the feeling of that encounter, Falk weaves art criticism with memoir to create a unique book whose first edition has already sold out.
Falk wrote the book during a period when she simultaneously pursued formal art criticism, reviewing exhibitions and interviewing artists, while she privately developed a loose, associative point of view. These forms merge into a hybrid text in The Surrender of Man, which details Falk’s encounters with 20 different works of art, including Yukio Morinaga’s photograph Canyon of Streets and Edmonia Lewis’ sculpture The Death of Cleopatra.
“I wrote The Surrender of Man book because I want to express that moments of art occur not only in the artist's creation of art, but in the transformational moments when one looks upon art and travels toward their own prismatic horizon,” said Falk.
Falk is not only a writer, but an editor for Archways Editions. Her experience working with John Trefry, the editor of Inside the Castle, affirmed her vision for editing as a craft. “It's an honor to publish my first book with Inside the Castle, an independent publisher who is entirely devoted to the vision of their artists and writers,” she wrote. “As an editor myself, I hope that my writers feel I am a fuel to their creative expression.”
In a review for Brooklyn Rail, critic Chelsea Davis wrote, “You can tell that Falk’s life has been saved by art many times, just as it has prepared her for death. Even within these darkened chambers, though, Surrender finds the light, suggesting that, in a seemingly desolate era, ‘the antidote to meaninglessness [is] art.’”
Naomi Falk is a writer, editor and book designer who lives in Brooklyn. Her writing and interviews have been published in BOMB Magazine, Splashland Magazine, Dead End Zine, Archway Editions Journal and more. She is the co-founder of the print magazine NAUSIKÂE NYC and the founder of Crop Circle Press.
