Our stories matter. And they are our legacies for future generations. (Plus: some free writing resources.)
Author Notes
Posted inArts & Culture, Author Notes, Nonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story
Selling Vintage Records in Tokyo
Listening to music with a Tokyo record store owner forges a deeper bond than any shared language.
Posted inAudio, Author Notes, Highlight, Podcasts, Profiles & Interviews
How a 16-Year-Old Boy Was Locked Away Without a Mental Evaluation
An interview with ProPublica’s Sarah Smith about the continued neglect of the mentally ill.
Posted inAuthor Notes, Blog Post, Nonfiction, Profiles & Interviews
How to Report on the Life of a 13-Year-Old
There must be few journalistic feats more difficult than getting inside the head of a teenager. But with “13, Right Now,” Washington Post staff writer Jessica Contrera joins the ranks of reporters who have skillfully chronicled the lives of children and teens, including Susan Orlean (read her classic Esquire piece, “The American Man, Age 10”) and more […]
Posted inAuthor Notes, Blog Post, Commentary, Discussions
In Praise of Public Pitching
I’ve always been fascinated by how narrative journalism gets commissioned, reported, and published–but the most perplexing part of the entire system is the continued power imbalance between writers and publishers. This imbalance persists in spite of the internet “democratizing” publishing. More digital publishers are embracing feature writing, but the process behind the scenes feels stuck in the past–a time-consuming marathon of […]
Posted inAuthor Notes, Blog Post, Commentary, Nonfiction
How Sarah Schweitzer Discovered the Story About a Boy Rescued from Near-Fatal Abuse
There are stories that creep up and remind us that there is no substitute in journalism for simply spending time with a subject. It’s a luxury many reporters don’t get, but what these stories reveal about the depth of humanity—the best and worst sides of it—make them so worth it. The Boston Globe’s Sarah Schweitzer […]
Posted inAuthor Notes, Nonfiction
How the ACLU Came to Publish a Powerful Piece of Investigative Journalism
“Out of the Darkness” chronicles how two psychologists teamed up with the CIA to devise a torture program and experiment on human beings.
Posted inAuthor Notes, Nonfiction
Postscript: A Secret Society Shuts Its Doors
What happened inside the Latitude Society? In September, we featured a Longreads Original by Rick Paulas, “‘We Value Experience,’” which told the story of artist/entrepreneur Jeff Hull and his group’s attempts to build a sustainable “secret society” in the Bay Area. Paulas has shared the following postscript on what happened after his story about the […]