A Tale of Two Vegases By Gayle Brandeis Feature Gayle Brandeis takes two trips to Sin City with her mother — one while her mother is delusional.
Black Disabled Wonder Women Need Love, Too By muteiny Feature Britney Wilson considers the lessons she learned while taking a risk on romance.
A Finder, No Longer a Keeper By Jenny Klion Feature How finding someone else’s engagement ring helped Jenny Klion let go of her own.
Politics as a Defense Against Heartbreak By Minda Honey Feature Minda Honey assesses the deliberate choices and external factors affecting her dating life.
Letter to a Dog Walking Service By Diane Mehta Feature Diane Mehta adopted a rescue dog but then questioned her own salvation from the chaos of daily migraines.
Vanishing As a Way to Reclaim Your Life By Aaron Gilbreath Feature On the eve of her marriage, an adventurous young woman tests how free she really wants to be.
The Cities in Me By Sorayya Khan Feature Novelist Sorayya Khan maps her path from Islamabad to Solvay.
Unpacking Forty Years of Fandom For a Losing Team By Kevin Sampsell Feature Kevin Sampsell examines his love of football — and a team that’s never won a Super Bowl.
The Month of Giving Dangerously By Elizabeth Greenwood Feature Elizabeth Greenwood decides to give everything: time, money, praise, forgiveness. But when does generosity become a mania for giving?
The Money His Father Left Behind, and the Life it Would Start By Michelle Legro Commentary When Alexander Chee’s father died at 43, he left behind a trust that would set the course of his son’s life.
Recovering My Fifth Sense By Kavita Das Feature Kavita Das recalls learning to self-advocate as a patient with a cleft palate — and as a child in a family full of doctors.
The Handgun and the Haunted Range By Justin Quarry Feature Justin Quarry hunted for himself, and a connection to his late father, with the unlikely inheritance of a firearm.
Stewards of the Blood By Aaron Gilbreath Feature One California woman tries to understand the code of honor that young men live by in blood feuds.
From One Friendship, Lessons on Life, Death, AIDS, and Childlessness By S. Kirk Walsh Feature S. Kirk Walsh reflects on her friendship with a gay man battling AIDS — how he taught her to grieve her own infertility, and live life more fully.
Diary of a Do-Gooder By Sara Eckel Feature After years of trying to distinguish herself, Sara Eckel considers the value of door-to-door canvassing, phone-banking, and other anonymous tasks of everyday activism.
To Your Door: The Human Cost of Food Delivery By Krista Stevens Highlight To earn money during a rough patch as a freelancer, Sam Riches worked as a bike courier, delivering food in Toronto during a six-month period. While the job lacked in pay, it offered one intriguing benefit: a crash course in human nature.
Changing My Mind About Pig’s Feet and Cornrows By Dara Lurie Feature Dara Lurie reflects on what she discovered about her own racism while living at a state-run home for disadvantaged children.
You Are What You Hear By Pauline Campos Feature Pauline Campos tries to forget the harsh words that shaped her understanding of her body growing up — for her daughter’s sake, and her own.
Smell, Memory By Longreads Feature Perfumers evoke the elegance of an imagined tennis game, not the stench of a real one.
Dance Me to the End of Love By Abigail Rasminsky Feature Abigail Rasminsky dreamed of becoming a professional dancer. Then she got hurt.
What to Do With a Man Who Has a Story, and a Gun By Lisa Romeo Feature Lisa Romeo recalls her first college romance, when she was willing to overlook a lot — until she wasn’t.
The High Cost of Becoming a Writer as a Single Mom By Sari Botton Highlight Stephanie Land endured poverty, loneliness, and more to pursue her dream of being a writer.
A Mother’s Less-Than-True Story of Being a Child Bride By Michelle Legro Highlight Getting married in her swimsuit at the age of 12 was something Danny Wallace’s mother would tell anyone she met. It also wasn’t true.
My Daughter Died, But I’m Still Mothering Her By Jacqueline Dooley Feature Jacqueline Dooley recalls her difficult transition from being a mother with earthly duties, to becoming one with more spiritual concerns for a teenage daughter with terminal cancer.
Fake It Till You Make It By Sari Botton Commentary On the pressure to pretend there’s no fallout after your parents’ divorce.
The Other People in Springfield By Imran Siddiquee Feature Imran Siddiquee considers the ways in which his identities — as a Bangladeshi-American and as a man — were shaped by growing up in the shadow of The Simpsons.
This is How You Say Goodbye By Lillian Ann Slugocki Feature After a series of losses, Lillian Slugocki tries to make sense of death — and life in the wake of others’ passing.
A Muslim, a Christian, and a Baby Named “God” By Rachel Pieh Jones Feature Rachel Pieh Jones, a Christian American living in Djibouti, reflects on her friendship with a Muslim woman there, and the more universal aspects of faith.
Longreads Best of 2017: Essays By Longreads Reading List We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here is the best in essays.
Where It’s Always Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas By Michelle Weber Highlight Marissa Weiss explores life in Alaska: The cold, the dark, the ice, the 3,000 miles between her and her parents in Maryland.
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