Save the date! On June 24, Longreads will be hosting a free night of storytelling at the Booksmith in San Francisco, featuring: Clara Jeffery (Mother Jones) Mat Honan (BuzzFeed) Susie Cagle (journalist & illustrator) Elizabeth Lopatto (The Verge) Emily Thelin (writer, Food & Wine) Dan Stone (Radio Silence) * * * Wednesday, June 24, 7:30 p.m. The Booksmith […]
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The Word Is ‘Nemesis’: The Fight to Integrate the National Spelling Bee
For talented black spellers in the 1960s, the segregated local spelling bee was the beginning and the end of the long road to Washington, D.C.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Our favorite stories of the week, featuring, the Center for Public Integrity, Mother Jones, Rolling Stone, The Boston Globe, and MinnPost.
How Does a Magazine Go About Calculating the Financial Cost of Gun Violence?
To begin to get a grasp on the economic toll, Mother Jones turned to Ted Miller at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, an independent nonprofit that studies public health, education, and safety issues. Miller has been one of the few researchers to delve deeply into guns, going back to the late 1980s when he began analyzing societal […]
Longreads Best of 2016: Crime Reporting
We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here, the best in crime reporting.
In Praise of Public Pitching
I’ve always been fascinated by how narrative journalism gets commissioned, reported, and published–but the most perplexing part of the entire system is the continued power imbalance between writers and publishers. This imbalance persists in spite of the internet “democratizing” publishing. More digital publishers are embracing feature writing, but the process behind the scenes feels stuck in the past–a time-consuming marathon of […]
The Word Is ‘Nemesis’: The Fight to Integrate the National Spelling Bee
For talented black spellers in the 1960s, the segregated local spelling bee was the beginning and the end of the long road to Washington, D.C.
American Gun Culture Is Literally Killing Us: A Reading List
It is impossible to talk about guns without talk about race, class, and gender. This list is only the beginning.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Our favorite stories of the week, featuring, Seattle Met, London Review of Books, More Intelligent Life, Mother Jones, and Matter.
How U.S. Spies Dug Up Hitler’s Sex Secrets
Earlier this week Mother Jones published a fascinating sampling from the CIA’s psychological profiles of various international figures. In 1943, the Office of Strategic Services (the WWII-era CIA predecessor) tasked a Harvard psychologist with drafting a profile of Hitler’s personality. Below is an excerpt, as compiled by Dave Gilson of Mother Jones: There is little disagreement among professional, or even among […]

