OK, “hate” is too strong a word. But I fundamentally do not get sports. Playing them, yes, fine. But knowing players’ names, arguing that this one guy is better than that other guy, keeping a little Excel sheet of strikes and yards and rebounds in my head? Baffling. But that doesn’t mean, as it turns […]
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Posted inNonfiction
The Nine Lives of Cat Videos
Are cat videos mindless distraction or a radical form of pure entertainment? A visit to the Internet Cat Video Festival at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Making the Magazine: A Reading List
27 must-read stories on the making of the world’s greatest magazines.
Posted inUncategorized
Longreads Guest Pick: Rustin Dodd on 'The Courage Of Jill Costello'
Rustin Dodd is a sports reporter at The Kansas City Star. For the most part, he spends his time covering Kansas basketball and football, but he has also covered the Kansas City Royals for the last five years. He’s covered two Final Fours, two Major-League All-Star Games and The Masters. He resides in Lawrence, Kan., […]
Posted inNonfiction
Curses: A Tribute to Losing Teams and Easy Scapegoats
Barry Grass | The Normal School | Spring 2014 | 18 minutes (4,537 words) 1st Late in every February, Major League Baseball players report to Spring Training. Every year in Kansas City this is heralded by a gigantic special section in The Kansas City Star crammed full of positive reporting and hopeful predictions about the […]
Posted inNonfiction
Everything to Live For
Jennifer Mendelsohn | Washingtonian | June 1998 | 36 minutes (8,995 words) Jennifer Mendelsohn is the “Modern Family” columnist for Baltimore Style magazine. A former People magazine special correspondent and Slate columnist, her work has appeared in publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Washingtonian, Tablet, Medium, McSweeney’s and Jezebel. This story first appeared in the June […]
Posted inBooks, First Chapters, Nonfiction, Unapologetic Women
The Good Girls Revolt
In 1970, Lynn Povich and 45 other women sued Newsweek for discrimination. Here is what the workplace was like for them.
Posted inNonfiction, Story
The Nine Lives of Cat Videos
Are cat videos mindless distraction or a radical form of pure entertainment? A visit to the Internet Cat Video Festival at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Making the Magazine: A Reading List
27 must-read stories on the making of the world’s greatest magazines.
Posted inEditor's Pick
How Athletes Get Great
How much of greatness is nature vs. nurture? Sports Illustrated writer David Epstein challenges Malcolm Gladwell’s “10,000 hours” rule in a new book about the science of training, The Sports Gene. A lot depends on individual biology, and there are cultural factors, too: “Usain Bolt is a great example. He was 6’4” when he was […]
