On coming home to the Philippines.
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Longreads Best of 2021: All of Our No. 1 Story Picks
Here’s every story that was chosen as No. 1 in our weekly Top 5 email.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Allie Conti, Joe Sexton and Nate Schweber, Alexander Chee, Nell Scovell, and Bee Wilson.
How to Pitch Personal Essays to Longreads: An Updated Guide
New submissions guidelines, plus information about our new essay series.
How to Grieve Your Friend and Mentor
In this moving personal essay, Amy Jo Burns writes about how the death of her writing mentor, Louise DeSalvo, has affected her, and how reading Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, and Sigrid Nunez’s The Friend helped her process her grief.
The First Time I Moved to New York
The fantasies Alexander Chee had of New York before he moved there didn’t fully prepare him for what it was like to love the city.
Why We Write Memoir: A Reading List
“I have spent innumerable afternoon hours with the essays below, each writer’s words a lifeline pulling me from the deep.”
The Changeling
Alexander Chee considers the ways in which answering the question, “What are you?” turned him into a writer.
The Changeling
A personal essay in which How to Write an Autobiographical Novel author Alexander Chee considers how answering the question, “What are you?” turned him into a writer.
The Money His Father Left Behind, and the Life it Would Start
When Alexander Chee’s father died at 43, he left behind a trust that would set the course of his son’s life.

