Paige Williams is a National Magazine Award-winning writer whose stories have been anthologized in five Best American volumes. She teaches at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard and edits Nieman Storyboard. For elegance + acute observation in the service of theme Belle Boggs’ “The Art of Waiting,” on fertility (Orion) “The family as a […]
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Longreads Is Joining Forces with The Atlantic
We have some big news to share today: Longreads is teaming up with The Atlantic, in a partnership that will allow us to expand our site and membership model—and continue to serve this community of readers, writers and publishers. When I first started the #longreads hashtag four years ago, The Atlantic was one of the […]
Escape from Jonestown
15-year-old Tommy Bogue was sent to a promising new church settlement in Guyana—run by a charismatic leader named Jim Jones.
The Art of Arrival: Rebecca Solnit on Travel and Friendship
Rebecca Solnit | Orion | Summer 2014 | 20 minutes (4,780 words) OrionOur latest Longreads Exclusive comes from Rebecca Solnit and Orion magazine—subscribe to the magazine or donate for more great stories like this. Get a free trial issue Download .mobi (Kindle) Download .epub (iBooks) [ 1. ] The word “journey” used to mean a […]
Interview: Caitlin Moran on the Working Class, Masturbation, and Writing a Novel
“I’m very much a bitch-gotta-pay-rent girl. I worked my way up from the ghetto and I think women should be paid for their great ideas.”
Alexander Woollcott and Harpo Marx: A Love Story
“Our friendship was a lifeÂlong game of ‘Who Am I?’ It was frustrating, exasperating, and sometimes downright silly, but it was a good, rewarding game.”
How to Fail in Business While Really, Really Trying: The True Story of J.C. Penney
Jennifer Reingold | Fortune | March 2014 | 29 minutes (7,108 words) Download as a .mobi ebook (Kindle) Download as an .epub ebook (iBooks) When you find a savior, you don’t quibble over details. So it was that J.C. Penney, the long-stagnating mid-tier department store chain, announced in June 2011 that it was hiring Ron […]
David Foster Wallace and the Nature of Fact
David Foster Wallace saw clear lines between journalists and novelists who write nonfiction, and he wrestled throughout his career with whether a different set of rules applied to the latter category.
On the Far Side of the Fire: Life, Death and Witchcraft in the Niger Delta
Jessica Wilbanks | Ninth Letter | Fall/Winter 2013 | 27 minutes (6,860 words) Download as a .mobi ebook (Kindle) Download as an .epub ebook (iBooks) One of our previous Longreads Member Picks, an essay by Jessica Wilbanks, is now free for everyone. “On The Far Side of the Fire” first appeared in Ninth Letter and was awarded the journal’s annual creative nonfiction award. This is […]
How One Magazine Shaped Investigative Journalism in America
The following story comes recommended by Ben Marks, senior editor for Collectors Weekly: Doris Kearns Goodwin’s most recent history, The Bully Pulpit, chronicles the intertwined lives of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, often in excruciating detail, from Roosevelt’s struggles with the bosses of his Republican party to the fungal infections that plagued Taft’s groin. […]
