Fifty years ago, the Freedom of Information Act gave the public access to government secrets — all you had to do was ask. How a simple request became a bureaucratic nightmare.
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Posted inCurrent Events, Nonfiction, Reading List
How We Got to Here: A Charlottesville Reading List
This weekend’s events will resonate long after the crowd was dispersed, long after the cable news trucks leave, long after the school year begins.
Posted inProfiles & Interviews, Story, Writing
An Interview with MacArthur ‘Genius’ Viet Thanh Nguyen
2017 MacArthur fellow Viet Thanh Nguyen discusses questions of justice, diversity in literature, and empathy across cultures.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books, Nonfiction, Story
How Does It Feel? An Alternative American History, Told With Folk Music
On Guthrie, Robeson, Seeger, Lomax, Dylan, the Red Scare, the fall of labor, and what folk music had to do with it.
Posted inArts & Culture, Blog Post, Current Events, Media, Unapologetic Women
We’re Going Through Hell, and Men Need to Join Us There
The momentum is happening and it’s exhausting for women.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Quotes, Unapologetic Women
Mary Tyler Moore on the Joys of Dancing
In her 2009 memoir, Growing Up Again: Life, Loves, and Oh Yeah, Diabetes, Moore wrote about how dance gave her strength and stability.
Posted inBlog Post
Who Is Christopher Wray, Trump’s Nominee for FBI Director?
To begin with, he’s someone who believes the ideal FBI director is “tough but fair and unfailingly honest.”
Posted inNonfiction, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Our top stories of the week, as chosen by the editors at Longreads.
Posted inNonfiction
‘Trilby,’ the Novel That Gave Us ‘Svengali’
George du Maurier’s Trilby, published in 1894, became one of the most popular novels of its time. The story introduced us to a young heroine, Trilby, and a memorable villain, Svengali, whose names have since taken on lives of their own.
Posted inBusiness & Tech, History, Nonfiction, Story
My Journey to the Heart of the FOIA Request
Fifty years ago, the Freedom of Information Act gave the public access to government secrets — all you had to do was ask. How a simple request became a bureaucratic nightmare.
