Gessen has written columns for the "The New York Times", "The New York Review of Books", "The Washington Post", the "Los Angeles Times", "The New Republic", "New Statesman", "Granta", "Slate", "Vanity Fair", "Harper's Magazine", "The New Yorker", and "U.S. News & World Report". Since 2017, she has been a staff writer for "The New Yorker".