A Finder, No Longer a Keeper
Jenny Klion tries to make sense of her super power of finding lost jewelry where ever she goes, and reflects on how finding someone else’s engagement ring helped her let go of her own.
Politics as a Defense Against Heartbreak
Minda Honey’s first in an original Longreads series on dating as a black woman in these times. Here, she assesses the deliberate choices and external factors affecting her romantic life.
A Teen and a Toy Gun
This is the story of the last day of 17-year-old Quanice Hayes’s life. It involves a police department that says they have no good way of deciphering between real guns and fake ones, and a family still searching for answers.
Unpacking Forty Years of Fandom for a Losing Team
In this personal essay, Kevin Sampsell examines his love of football — and a team that’s never won a Super Bowl.
The Mutilated and the Disappeared
A visit to the only shelter in Mexico for migrants who have been mutilated along the migrant trail.
The Month of Giving Dangerously
Elizabeth Greenwood decides to give everything: time, money, praise, forgiveness. But when does generosity become a mania for giving?
A Toxic Tour Through Underground Ohio
A booming injection well industry is pumping toxic waste deep into the earth in Ohio’s rural towns.
Recovering My Fifth Sense
In this personal essay, Kavita Das recalls learning to self-advocate as a patient with a cleft palate — and as a child in a family full of doctors.
How ‘Cops’ Became the Most Polarizing Reality TV Show in America
What one of TV’s longest-running reality shows says about race and our relationship with the police.
From One Friendship, Lessons on Life, Death, AIDS and Childlessness
In this personal essay, 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.