Mark Haber discusses “Reinhardt’s Garden” and its protagonist’s quest for a true understanding of melancholy: “not a feeling but a mood, not a color but a shade, not depression but not happiness either…”
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Judge a Book Not By its Gender
Lisa Whittington-Hill suggests there’s a distinct gender bias in celebrity memoirs. Where female celebrities are expected to expose all, male writers get to write about whatever they want.
‘They Happen To Be Our Neighbors Across the Span of a Century, But They’re Our Neighbors.’
One hundred summers ago, black Chicagoans were terrorized by whites during the Red Summer. Poet Eve Ewing talks about reaching out to her neighbors across time in “1919.”
The Hare Krishnas of Coal Country
The world is full of make-believe. Some of it is sweet, some of it is sick. It persists because we have found no other antidote for pain.
Ten Outstanding Short Stories to Read in 2021
Pravesh Bhardwaj read and and shared 304 short stories on the #longreads Twitter hashtag in 2020. Here are his favorites.
Debt Demands a Body
“The future that debt chose for me — indeed the future it chooses for many people — included a lot of shame, confusion, and pain.”
‘I’m Always Writing Against This Idea That Denver’s a White Space.’
Kali Fajardo-Anstine talks about her new short story collection “Sabrina & Corina,” her obsession with dualities, and Chicano and Indigenous history in Denver.
‘I Spent Two Years Researching Before I Wrote a Single Line’: Geeking Out With Marlon James
Man Booker winner Marlon James immersed himself in African myths and history, so he could use that world as a springboard for a new fantasy series.
Reimagining Harper Lee’s Lost True Crime Novel: An Interview with Casey Cep
“Somewhere along the way it became very clear to me that I was writing the book she never would.”
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.

