Showcasing stories from Oliver Whang, Shannon Mattern, Niko McCarty and Xander Balwit, Josh Dzieza, and Sam Parker.
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Rod McKuen Was the Bestselling Poet in American History. What Happened?
“He sold 60 million books and 100 million records. Why was he forgotten?”
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week we’re sharing stories from Stacy Perman, Azadeh Moaveni, Jake Kring-Schreifels, Kris Newby, and Nikita Arora.
Odd, Genius, or Something In Between: A Reading List on Writers
“Give me the weird tics, the turns of phrase, the strange beginnings. Give me the writer in their natural habitat.”
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
An unjust police killing. Nature reclamation in the fossil fuel era. Surviving a bear attack. The underbelly of the antiquities trade. And for a well-earned dessert, the legacy of the world’s first breakout video game. 1. Police Killed His Son. Prosecutors Charged the Teen’s Friends With His Murder Meg O’Connor | The Appeal & Phoenix […]
Writing Through It (and the Week’s Top 5)
“I don’t get creatively unstuck. I just write despite the fact that I’m stuck. I learned a long time ago that being ‘stuck’ is really just the unshakable belief that everything you can think of writing is shit, and while that may be true, it might also not be, and the biggest predictor of whether […]
The Joy of New Words and the Week’s Top 5
“Yet I still doggy paddle in impostor syndrome. For I am not a biologist or cetologist, nor an oceanographer. I am just a woman with a pen, a profound love for water, and an eye for noticing patterns in the currents, eddies, and swirls of living.” Sometimes words aren’t enough. Or, at least, existing words […]
Mulling Desire, Honoring Murdered Women, and Our Top 5
I had no idea that the hot, tingly pain of blood returning to a frozen extremity is called the screaming barfies, until I read “What Is a Body For?” by Diana Saverin.
Between the Lines with Neal Allen, Anne Lamott, and Kory Stamper
The Longreads questionnaire with Neal Allen and Anne Lamott, a book excerpt from Kory Stamper, and our Top 5 Longreads of the week.


