As a teenager, I met a stranger who changed the course of my life. Twenty years later, I went looking for him.
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The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week’s list features stories from Melissa del Bosque, Jeff Maysh, Nathan Munn, Katherine Rundell, and Tom Lamont.
The Rhythm of Writing: A Chat with the Writer and Editor Behind The Atavist’s New Issue
As host of The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, Brendan O’Meara is no stranger to talking about the art and craft of storytelling. In this craft-focused excerpt, we’re digging into Episode 336, in which he interviewed Atavist editor Jonah Ogles and freelance writer Cassidy Randall about her work on the latest issue of The Atavist. Cassidy Randall, a freelance writer based out […]
Best of 2022: Reported Essays
Our list of some of the great reported essays published this year includes reads on grief, veganism, the geology of Mexico City, and British real estate.
‘Can You Imagine How That Felt?’: Blake Bailey’s Predations, As Told By His Students
The inside story of author Blake Bailey’s grooming of middle-school girls.
La Cancion de la Nena
“He sits on the edge of the bed to compose and work through songs, facing an amp, while I curl into his velvet-lined guitar case and listen…I have called up this memory so many times I feel the gauze of fiction starting to overlay its details. But it is a memory so dear, I reanimate […]
Fuel, Medicine, Pleasure
What could it mean to give yourself the food you need to keep going? No punishing, no guilt, no withholding. Just nourishment.
‘We Told You So’: Revisiting the Bleak, Pandemic-Filled World of 12 Monkeys, 25 Years Later
“Gilliam does believe that the end of society may soon be upon us. The question for him is: What shape will the new one take?”

