How to Pitch Personal Essays to Longreads: An Updated Guide By Sari Botton Highlight New submissions guidelines, plus information about our new essay series.
Five Longreads Stories Selected for 2020 Editions of the ‘Best American’ Series By Sari Botton Highlight Congratulations to Matthew Salesses, Tim Requarth, Mojgan Ghazirad, Shanna B. Tiayon, Joe Fassler, and The Counter, our partner in co-publishing Fassler’s piece.
And Then We Grew Up By Sarah Menkedick Feature On letting go of potential and other myths of greatness.
Scrap the To Do Lists By Carolyn Wells Highlight “If we’re lucky enough to be able to shelter in place and we’re not using that time to launch podcasts and personal projects and life-hack our way to some cargo-cult pastiche of normality, are we somehow letting the side down?”
Grieving, but Calmed by a Different Kind of Storm By Stephanie Land Feature In isolation, Stephanie Land finds surprising relief from PTSD — and discovers she is able to write again.
On Watching Boys Play Music By Eryn Loeb Feature “With a drink in my hand and earplugs responsibly in place, I’m very aware that I’ve spent more than half my life essentially standing in the same spot: off to one side of the stage (close but not too close), eyes forward, shifting weight from foot to foot.”
The Coastal Shelf By juneameliarose Feature June Amelia Rose remembers coming out in her youth to a turbulent family as her mother died of cancer.
Why I’m Giving Myself Permission to Keep Writing at This Time By Sari Botton Highlight Our stories matter. And they are our legacies for future generations. (Plus: some free writing resources.)
“The Anger of Women is an Earth-shattering Thing”: Lidia Yuknavitch on Resisting the Hero Narrative and the Body as a Generator of Stories. By Jane Ratcliffe Commentary “I’m going to say a blasphemous thing, which is we are so fucking done with the hero’s journey. It has been to our peril.”
When Time Costs Too Much By Carolyn Wells Highlight If you are the family breadwinner, how do you calculate the value of time with your children?
8 Longreads by Will Storr on the Science of Storytelling By Catherine Cusick Reading List Eight must-read stories that investigate science, belief, and the human impulse to tell stories.
Miami: A Beginning By Jessica Lynne Feature Jessica Lynne remembers a long distance love affair that began in Miami and the Billie Holiday song that kept her company through the relationship’s transitions.
Welcome to Hive By Danielle Jackson Feature Hive is a new Longreads series about women and the music that has influenced them.
“What Do I Know To Be True?”: Emma Copley Eisenberg on Truth in Nonfiction, Writing Trauma, and The Dead Girl Newsroom By Jacqueline Alnes Feature “We were interested in dead girls, but so interested in them that we were trying to do the opposite of what had been done before.”
Tar Bubbles By Melissa Matthewson Feature Melissa Matthewson remembers the flights of fancy that kept her company as a young girl, and bears witness to her daughter’s.
When It Comes to the Climate Crisis, Don’t Forget the Power of the States By Livia Gershon Feature Even with the federal government in chaos, there’s still plenty of opportunity to solve a global problem.
Beautiful Women, Ugly Scenes: On Novelist Nettie Jones and the Madness of ‘Fish Tales’ By Michael Gonzales Feature Edited by Toni Morrison, the 1983 novel ‘Fish Tales’ by Nettie Jones was supposed to set the literary world on fire. It didn’t.
The Reality of Being Sick and Alone By Carolyn Wells Highlight Diagnosed with breast cancer, Anne Boyer discusses the treatment that is poisoning her body.
Under the Knife By Margot Harris Feature Margot Harris grapples with guilt following a labiaplasty procedure.
‘A World Where Mothers Are Seen’ By Vanessa Martir Feature Vanessa Mártir introduces Writing the Mother Wound, a series of essays on mothering presented in collaboration with Writing our Lives and Longreads.
When the Dishes Are Done, I Wonder About Progress By Sarah Rose Haas Feature In “Coventry,” Rachel Cusk draws a connection between politeness and narrative death, rudeness and tragedy, storytelling and war.
‘People Can Become Houses’ By Danielle Jackson Feature In her debut memoir, Sarah Broom builds her “obsession” with her family home — destroyed in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina — into a story of how families decide who they are, how they got here, and how they reconstruct themselves over and over again.
Grandiose and Claustrophobic: ‘Prozac Nation’ Turns 25 By Anne Thériault Feature Elizabeth Wurtzel’s bestseller is deeply rooted in a specific, Gen-X cultural moment. Can it still speak to us in 2019?
Truly Seeing the River: An Interview with Writer Boyce Upholt By Aaron Gilbreath Feature Writing about the culture and beauty of the Mississippi Delta requires seeing the mighty river as more than a line of water.
‘The Survivor’s Edit’: Bassey Ikpi on Memory, Truth, and Living with Bipolar II By Naomi Elias Feature Bassey Ikpi discusses writing about mental illness. “I could count on the morning. It became the thing that existed without my input… without determining whether or not I was worthy of it.”
The Occupation of a Woman Writer By Kiley Bense Feature Our inherited biases about who should write what live deeper than most of us realize or want to acknowledge.
Shapes of Native Nonfiction: ‘The Basket Isn’t a Metaphor, It’s an Example’ By Colin Dickey Feature The editors of “Shapes of Native Nonfiction” talk about the craft of writing, the politics of metaphor, and resisting the exploitation of trauma.
On Keeping a Notebook: A Reading List By Jeanne Bonner Reading List In this reading list, Jeanne Bonner ruminates on the joys of writing by hand and keeping a notebook.
None of the President’s Men By Soraya Roberts Feature Journalism now is a lot more fear and insecurity and a lot less corduroy and Robert Redford, but you’d never know it from what is projected.
Racism in Romance, or Why Is the Duke Always White By Michelle Weber Highlight White people: how many people still think “Fabio!” when they hear “romance novel,” raise your hands. Thought so.
