“There often is a ‘tone’ in writing about the poor. There is a presumption that people of a certain class are mired in misery.”
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Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Remembering the Life and Work of Journalist Matthew Power (1974-2014)
Matt was the bravest writer I’ve ever known. He covered conflict, climbed mountains, and followed in the exploratory footsteps of so many unfortunate travelers of yore in order to write his own account of what such trips felt like today, to a modern consciousness. This last piece was his specialty. They were why we read […]
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story
Interview: ‘Poor Teeth’ Writer Sarah Smarsh on Class and Journalism
“There often is a ‘tone’ in writing about the poor. There is a presumption that people of a certain class are mired in misery.”
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
What It's Like to Be a Suspected Terrorist
“Americans continue to shake their heads over new revelations of widespread data mining and near-universal phone tapping, while Unamericans righteously defend these tactics and call for punishment of the leakers who revealed them. Were I to be shown in accurate detail why it was necessary for me to be kept under surveillance, possibly for the […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Colson Whitehead on Gen X, Friendship and The Best Skill a Writer Can Have
“It was 1991. We’d just been diagnosed as Generation X, and certainly we had all the symptons, our designs and life plans as scrawny and undeveloped as our bodies. Sure, we had dreams. Dan had escaped college with a degree in visual arts, was a cartoonist en route to becoming an animator. Darren was an […]
About Us
Longreads, founded in 2009 by Mark Armstrong, is dedicated to finding and sharing the best longform nonfiction storytelling on the web. We publish personal and reported essays, criticism, reading lists, and occasional book excerpts, interviews, and more in-depth features. Longreads has been nominated for four National Magazine Awards (and won a 2020 ASME for Best Digital […]
Posted inNonfiction
Interview: Vela Magazine Founder Sarah Menkedick on Women Writers and Sustainable Publishing
An Q&A with Sarah Menkedick.
Posted inNonfiction
Longreads Best of 2013: The 10 Stories We Couldn't Stop Thinking About
A list of stories that resonated with us.
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction, Story
How to Spell the Rebel Yell
What did the Civil War sound like?
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Elizabeth Gilbert and the Art of Ignoring Rejection
“I was just so committed, and I did have six years of rejection letters. And it really didn’t break my heart. Some of them made me really excited because some of them had little handwritten notes at the bottom. Pretty good, but not our thing. And I was like, I got a really great handwritten […]
