In the midst of a pandemic, nature reminds Susan Krawitz that miracles are possible.

June Amelia Rose remembers coming out in her youth to a turbulent family as her mother died of cancer.

Navigating distance and time in the age of uncertainty.

As she’s done before, Sara B. Franklin greets the specter of death by defiantly planting a life-sustaining vegetable garden.

Naz Riahi recalls her vibrant childhood in a suburb of Tehran, and considers how the harsh realities imposed by the still new Islamic Republic seeped into her family’s life.

Sarah Fay reflects on four years spent in solitude (and isolation [and loneliness]), viewing it through the lens of punctuation.

A headline-grabbing murder-for-hire plot helped expose the dark side of exotic animal ownership in the U.S. Is there now enough momentum to reform the industry?

Dialogue, Twitter-style: you get called out on social media. People pile on to you. Other people pile on to the pile-oners. Soon everyone’s anxious or angry or both, no one’s really talking (or listening), and a few tech CEOs are buying new houses in Jackson Hole.

For years, singer-songwriter Paul Curreri was a shouter of singular beauty. Then he went quiet — slowly, at first, then all of a sudden.

Sarah Miller thinks about climate change and other current horrors, and what it’s like just being sad forever.

New York midwife Elizabeth Catlin faces 95 individual felony counts at her upcoming trial. For what? For doing her job. Politics and patriarchy make the work of many credentialed, experienced midwives illegal — to the detriment of women and underserved communities.

How youth in Rochester, New York, are working to save their neighborhood — and themselves — by forging pathways away from violent street crime.

An entanglement with her shrink-stalking protege teaches Susan Shapiro something about forgiveness.

Why couldn’t this ailing appendage get over itself? Diagnosing a mysterious malady.

When she loses a pregnancy, Anna Lea Hand searches in vain for vital advice and information.

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.

Hive is a new Longreads series about women and the music that has influenced them.

“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.” 

It’s surprising when stodgy institutions award progressive artists, and surprises, even good ones, are alarming — so we immediately burden the winners with the weight of symbolism.

As a nursing mother newly exposed to the harsh realities of milk production, Liza Monroy reconsiders the dairy cow, and questions the meaning of compassion.

After a childhood filled with intrusive medical interventions for misaligned eyes, Liane Kupferberg Carter wrestles with learning to see herself and others clearly.

Daisy Alioto reconsiders the nature of architecture while researching window alarms.