When Sam Anderson and Adam Sternbergh left New York Magazine for The New York Times, Adam Moss wrote a letter about their departure which included the following paragraph:

We won’t find another Adam and Sam; but we will find other wonderful new voices who will keep the magazine fresh and moving forward.  Our burden is that sometimes we’re so good at discovery that we are vulnerable to other publications that want what we have.  But that’s our opportunity as well.  In the perpetual hunt for talent, the magazine stays vital.  We are constantly remaking ourself; that’s the thrill for us, and also, when we do it right, for our readers.

This raised a question in my mind. Who are the most exciting young critics currently writing? I don’t know what “young” means exactly, but I’m not talking about the ones with steady job at a trusted publication. I don’t mean Kakutani, Myers, or Woods. I mean the hustling freelancers and eager bloggers and moonlighting critics who exist at the periphery. The small-stage big-thinkers who have already shown a knack for transforming the endless chaotic babble of art and culture into something lucid and new.

Young novelists are a dime-a-dozen. Every season there’s a gaggle of fresh-faced fiction starlets in the media–photographed and interviewed and paid attention to. We have awards, retreats, and fellowships for young novelists, but the young critic is less glamorous profession, and only rarely finds name recognition. To rectify that situation, I’d like to launch the MobyLives great “young” critic hunt.

So tell me, readers, who are your favorite unheralded critics? This need not be a judgement based on a body of work–a single sparkling essay or review might have caught your eye. I was originally going to ask only about literary critics, but on second thought, I’d like to open the “hunt” up to recommendations for any kind of critic: music, technology, food, etc. If possible, please mention why you enjoy this critic’s style, and provide a link to a representative article.

This is by no means a contest, but if any particular young literary critic rises to the top, we’ll be sure to send them our Melville House titles in the future…