“And so I remember that it’s this moment I want, before it becomes the next, where anything could happen and anything could not.”
Essays & Criticism
The Strangely Beautiful Experience of Google Reviews
Glimpses of humanity in an unlikely corner of the internet.
Best of 2022: Reported Essays
Our list of some of the great reported essays published this year includes reads on grief, veganism, the geology of Mexico City, and British real estate.
Best of 2022: Personal Essays
Five notable personal essays published this year, on friendship, loss, war, endings, and metaphors.
The Sunset
Lisa Bubert | Longreads | November 30, 2022 | 11 minutes (3,072 words) When I was 19, a nursing home hired me to work as an aide. There wasn’t much to the interview that I remember, other than I agreed to come to work on time and take the certification course the home provided. In […]
How Wednesday Addams Birthed a Generation of Cynics
Emily Alford | Longreads | November 23, 2022 | 8 minutes (2,132 words) Midway through 1991’s The Addams Family, young Wednesday Addams attempts to supplement her family’s lost fortunes by selling poison lemonade for a nickel. Not everyone’s a willing customer. “I only like all-natural foods and beverages, organically grown with no preservatives,” a perky […]
The Death Artist
Her medium: the cremains of departed loved ones. Her mission: to change your perspective on the end of life.
‘Some Things Never Leave You’: Christian Livermore on Poverty’s Indelible Marks
“For me, passing means trying to be anything other than what I was, and what I fear so desperately I always will be: poor white trash.”
Final Girl, Terrible Place
I was expecting a handy theory. What I found was a way of seeing that would help me decode a script I’d been stuck in for much of my life.
Low Country, High Water: A Reading List for a South Under Climate Change
How do you love a place that is sinking?