My best friend and the New Kids on the Block, 30 years later.
Search results
We All Work for Facebook
Digital labor is valuable even when we do it for free. Should we get paid?
It’s Like That: The Makings of a Hip-Hop Writer
Hip-hop was a different kind of music that needed a different kind of writer to cover it. This is how Michael A. Gonzales came of age in a time when Black writers began breaking the white ceiling.
Alternative Reality: ‘California Divided’
A story about a blind, 88-year-old pharmacist in Memphis named Charles A. Champion, the end of All About Beer, and more in this alt weekly reading list.
The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Orchids
Sometimes a flower is just a flower, and sometimes it’s a powerful vehicle for giving free rein to our worst colonialist and misogynist impulses.
When American Media Was (Briefly) Diverse
An economic downturn in 2008 shuttered numerous publications and further marginalized people of color in an already minimally integrated industry. But in the 90’s and early-aughts, multicultural publications flourished, providing an alternative model for journalism that bears remembering.
Flagrant Foul: Benching Teen Moms Before Title IX
As a high schooler and new mom, Jane Rubel didn’t consider herself a feminist. She just knew that if husbands and fathers were eligible to play high school basketball, she should have been, too.
Family Animals
In an excerpt from her new memoir, Grace Talusan fondly remembers the badly behaved dog that won her skeptical father’s heart.
The Year of the Cat
Elisabeth Donnelly looks back at a relationship with a wily cat during a lonely time in upstate New York.
Longreads Best of 2018: All of Our No. 1 Story Picks
Here’s every story that was chosen as No. 1 in our weekly Top 5 email.

