There are few places I can think of more melancholy than the streets of my hometown late at night.
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Best of 2023: All of Our Number One Story Picks
Every piece we selected as our top story of the week in 2023, all in one place.
‘We Are Everywhere’: A Reading List for the Queer South
It is time now to listen. We are not going anywhere.
This Week: Rituals, Emoji, and a Cold Case
“Ritual is an urge and an act; it’s an aesthetic gesture. As an adult I established the habit of turning my attention to those subtle seasonal details and recording them. I was loving and honoring the land, but this practice still left something undone. A certain clarity, maybe formality. Something like a frame around a […]
The Secret Door
“When we read, we make believe. We aren’t duped or ensorcelled. Deep down we decide. We make ourselves believe.”
What We Save, What We Destroy: A Reading List on Difficult Heritage
The present we inhabit is shaped by the mixed legacies of the past.
Families Like Ours: A Reading List for the Children of Queer Parents
Some of us got to stay with our moms or dads. Others did not.
Where We Belong and Our Top 5
“With this 11-a-side tournament, these young men would be the first to carry their nation onto an international stage. It seemed fitting that it would happen here in Springdale, home to the largest population of Marshallese anywhere outside the islands.” This week at Longreads, I’ve been thinking about our sense of place. It’s something I […]
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Showcasing stories from Chelsea Kirk; Tracie White; Timothy White; Jonathan Farmer and A.O. Scott; and Ellen Cushing.
I’ve Fled New York with My Wife, Kids and Dog – Just as my Ancestors Fled the 1918 Pandemic
After covering the plights of refugees around the world as a journalist, Bryan Mealer finds himself a refugee, fleeing New York City for his childhood home of west Texas — where his great-grandmother and her oldest daughter died in the influenza epidemic of 1918.


