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The staff of Longreads.

“Now, thanks to that pampering, upon his retirement in the winter of 1988 as the NFL’s alltime leading rusher, Walter Payton found himself burdened by a realization that had struck thousands of ex-athletes before him: I am bored out of my mind. When strangers asked, he talked about how thrilled he was to be free of the burdens of football. ‘I’m not going to miss the pounding,’ he told ABC’s Peter Jennings. ‘And the getting up at six and working out until dusk.’ The words were pure fantasy. He would miss it desperately. ‘He went from an abnormal existence as an athlete to a normal one,’ says Brittney, now 26. ‘How does anyone do that?’”

“The Hero No One Knew” — Jeff Pearlman, Sports Illustrated

See more #longreads from Sports Illustrated

(Fiction)

I didn’t hear that Duncan Pratt had been killed until I’d been out of the Army for two weeks and had gone four days without a single thought about that final year in Vietnam. If the phone had been disconnected on time, I would never have heard at all. A mutual buddy from military intelligence school called on his way to a year of bumming in Europe. He talked a long time before saying, I guess you heard that Duncan Pratt was killed. No, I said. How? He was killed by a mortar round in Pleiku, our friend said; and he hung up to catch a plane to Luxembourg.

“Moving Day.” — Robert Olen Butler, Fictionaut.

See more #longreads from Fictionaut

“The junior executives’ office at Thinkscope Visioncloud was nicer than any room within a fifty-mile radius of the “Office” studio. After I finished pitching one of my ideas for a low-budget romantic comedy, I was met with silence. One of the execs sheepishly looked at the other execs. He finally said, ‘Yeah, but we’re really trying to focus on movies about board games. People really seem to respond to those.’” 

“Flick Chicks.” — Mindy Kaling, The New Yorker

More #longreads: “A Long Day at ‘The Office’ with Mindy Kaling.” The New York Times magazine, Sept. 23, 2011

“I’ve been teaching high school social studies for 18 years, so it’s hard for me to be shocked by the behavior of students. But every once in a while, someone manages to surprise me. One day last year I looked up at the auditorium stage to hear one of my students deliver a speech that changed my idea of what it means to be an American.”

“The Making of Miss Hornet.” — John Waldron, This Land Press

See other #longreads about high school

“PAUL RUDD: When I talk to people who went to camp and they’re like, “Dude, that movie totally gets it,” I don’t know how to respond to that. Which part? The part of going into town for heroin? Or your chef humping a fridge?”

“The Ultimate Oral History of ‘Wet Hot American Summer.’” — Whitney Pastorek, Details magazine

Also see another of Pastorek’s #longreads: “The Complete Oral History of ‘Party Down’” Feb. 2011

“Yet, as a 2006 State Department report shows, U.S. officials have for years been aware of credible allegations that Raziq and his men participated in a cold-blooded massacre of civilians, the details of which have, until now, been successfully buried. And this, in turn, raises questions regarding whether U.S. officials may have knowingly violated a 1997 law that forbids assistance to foreign military units involved in human-rights violations.”

“Our Man in Kandahar.” — Matthieu Aikins, The Atlantic

See more #longreads from The Atlantic

“A great problem for the mad in the mid-20th century was that the sane were always trying to get in on their act. Sincere people who were not mad wanted to interfere with the mad in various ways in order to relieve them of their suffering and isolation, while others, equally sincere, wanted to get down with them and reinterpret their crazy ramblings as meta-sanity.”

“Diary: Which one of you is Jesus?” — Jenny Diski, London Review of Books

See more #longreads from the London Review of Books

“One recalled that as a girl, she would enact a nocturnal parental ritual in reverse: She, the child, would creep out from her bed to listen at her mother’s door for the precious sound of breathing. ‘She was just terrified,’ Morris says, ‘that her mother would die.’” 

“Parents of a Certain Age.” — Lisa Miller, New York Magazine

See more #longreads from Lisa Miller

“There was a moment in sports when employing a coach was unimaginable—and then came a time when not doing so was unimaginable. We care about results in sports, and if we care half as much about results in schools and in hospitals we may reach the same conclusion.”

“Coaching a Surgeon: What Makes Top Performers Better?” — Atul Gawande, The New Yorker

See more #longreads from The New Yorker

Meet the Newest Longreader: Joyce King Thomas

I’m thrilled to announce a new partner in Longreads: Joyce King Thomas. Joyce is the former executive vice president and chief creative officer of McCann-Erickson. She created Mastercard’s “Priceless” campaign, among other outstanding work.

Joyce will be working with me on advertising initiatives for Longreads. She and I actually go way back: She’s been a longtime Longreads community member (here’s her page), and we both share a passion for journalism.

Two years ago, I launched Longreads simply because I was looking for something to read. What I hadn’t expected was that this community would preside over a renaissance for long-form storytelling on the web.

The audience is growing by leaps and bounds (use of the hashtag on Twitter has quadrupled over the past few months), and every day I hear more great ideas from Longreads Members about how we can improve.

With Joyce as a partner, I feel truly lucky, and with her onboard we’re laying the foundation for a broader editorial and curator network. There’s so much more that we’d like to create to serve this community, and advertising (along with the generosity of your Longreads Memberships) will help support this growth.

She and I will be working with a small number of brands that want to help support outstanding storytelling, and create some cool stuff in the process. If you’d like to request an invite to participate, you can reach Joyce here.

We’ve also worked closely with publishers, and we’re going to continue to do that in new and interesting ways that will be relevant to readers. And of course, we’ll always be open and totally transparent about how we do everything. I’m glad to hear from anyone—members, publishers, authors, curators—who wants to know more or get involved.

It has been a incredible two and a half years for Longreads, and I’m thankful to the entire community for its support as we continue to grow.