“Now I rarely let myself think of those Before Times. Describing what was once my life is like trying to recapture a sensation, a place that only ever existed in a dream.”
Cheri Lucas Rowlands
Cheri has been an editor at Longreads since 2014.
Posted inEditor's Pick
DNA Tests Are Uncovering the True Prevalence of Incest
“People are discovering the truth about their biological parents with DNA—and learning that incest is far more common than many think.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
My Family’s Daily Struggle to Find Food in Gaza
“In my homeland, where we used to cook and celebrate together, my relatives are eating animal feed to keep from starving.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
What’s the Price of a Childhood Turned Into Content?
“In the unregulated world of vloggers, children are, for the most part, not entitled to a single cent they help earn. We spoke to creators—and a former kid influencer—to understand how this unusual family business actually works.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Death and the Salesmen
“As the city runs out of burial space, a series of boardroom and legal battles in the booming bereavement industry could determine the future of death in Toronto.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Last Days of Mezcal
“Can the world’s most beautiful spirit survive its own boom?”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Hot New Luxury Good for the Rich: Air
“The wealthy have different houses, different cars, different lifestyles from the rest of us. These days, they also want to breathe different air.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Why Are Pants So Big (Again)?
“And what the latest swing from skinny to wide tells us about ourselves.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Tripping on LSD at the Dolphin Research Lab
How a 1960s interspecies-communication experiment went haywire.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The “Disney Adult” Industrial Complex
“The grown-up Disney superfan has become a much-mocked phenomenon online. But creating these consumers was always part of the corporation’s plan.”