We asked Washington Post reporter Dan Zak how he stumbled upon “The Prophets of Oak Ridge.” Here’s his account: “This story happened because a generous colleague, Dana Priest, pitched it downstairs to my area of the newsroom. She had finished a series on the country’s aging nuclear arsenal and a shorter news story on security lapses […]
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Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction, Story
The Craft of Poetry: A Semester with Allen Ginsberg
An intimate recollection of a Beat legend.
Posted inBooks, Member Pick, Nonfiction, Story
An Ex-Industrial Fisherman Rethinks His Job
“It’s not just about: How can we save the oceans? But we also need to flip our way of thinking and ask: How can the oceans save us?”
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction, Story
Budd & Leni
The story of Hollywood screenwriter Budd Schulberg’s unlikely collaboration with Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl.
Posted inBooks, Member Pick, Nonfiction, Story
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.
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction, Story
For the Public Good: The Shameful History of Forced Sterilization in the U.S.
“I never figured out why they did that to me.”
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction, Story
How to Spell the Rebel Yell
What did the Civil War sound like?
Posted inBooks, Member Pick, Nonfiction, Story
The Skies Belong to Us: How Hijackers Created an Airline Crisis in the 1970s
Brendan I. Koerner | The Skies Belong to Us | 2013 | 25 minutes (6,186 words) ‘There Is No Way to Tell a Hijacker by Looking At Him’ When the FAA’s antihijacking task force first convened in February 1969, its ten members knew they faced a daunting challenge—not only because of the severity of the […]
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
All Aboard: Four Stories About Trains
Ah, the romance of the rails. I still bear vivid memories of my family’s post-Christmas train ride to New York City when I was an adolescent. I listened to my non-Apple mp3 player and watched, wide-eyed, the people and places passing by. Last year, I hopped commuter train after commuter train trying to bridge the […]
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction, Story
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 […]
