A Very Naughty Little Girl
The extraordinary life of Janet Vaughan, who changed our relationship with blood.
Trauma and Joy: Four Stories About Adoption
The stories of adoptees are not open-and-shut case files—they are complex and messy. In these particular stories, you’ll meet a young woman who fought for her three brothers, a group of stridently anti-adoption adoptees, an eager couple waiting by the phone, and another couple coping with the myth of post-racism.
The Bomb in the Bag
How America’s first suicide attack changed one man’s fortune forever.
‘A Taste of Power’: The Woman Who Led the Black Panther Party
Elaine Brown was the first and only woman to lead the male-dominated Black Panther Party. She looks back on Jean Seberg, COINTELPRO, and internal divisions within the organization.
Kelly Link Is Beloved, But Still Underrated: A Primer on My Favorite Living Short Story Writer
“Bear with me as I describe my own fandom of Kelly Link.”
The Holy Junk Heap
Some 300,000 Jewish documents were hidden in a closet in Cairo for hundreds of years. They were discovered by the lady adventurer twins Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson and the legendary Rabbinical scholar Solomon Schechter. Here is their story.
A Conversation With Writer Colm Tóibín on the ‘Close Imagining’ of Fiction
Longreads spoke with Tóibín, who splits his time between Dublin and New York, by phone about the protagonists he’s compelled to write about and how he goes about creating their worlds.
Inside the Advertising Industry: A Reading List
From fashion bloggers to food “fluffers,” it takes a village to make you want to buy stuff. Why do some brands connect with us, while others take us by surprise or make us angry? Here are six stories examining the advertising industry.
The Art of Authenticity: A Conversation with PostSecret’s Frank Warren
For the past ten years Frank Warren has been collecting and publishing other people’s anonymous secrets, sent via postcard, on his blog, PostSecret. The stories behind the postcards span the entire spectrum of human drama, from tales of petty revenge to accounts of abuse and severe depression.
Think of This as a Window: Remembering the Life and Work of Maggie Estep
“I moved to Lower Manhattan when I was seventeen. The only things I cared about were books and music.”