[Fiction] Pepa’s not afraid of anything:
For two weeks, her parents were gone, and during this time Pepa took care of her brother as she did when they were not in the jungle. She prepared meals. She went to the market and mopped the floors and fed the chickens, of course. She made sure that Kurt took a bath every day and helped him with his lessons. When her parents returned from the jungle, their clothes caked in red mud, their breaths smelling of hunger, Pepa washed their clothes, stomping and rinsing them over and over again, the water flowing red like blood. Then she made them a twelve-egg omelet, for the protein, and fed them mounds of rice and fried bananas. After the meal, which they ate dutifully and in silence, they slept for twenty-four hours straight.
“The Doctor’s Daughter.” — Anne Raeff, Guernica Magazine
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Longreads Pick
[Fiction] Pepa’s not afraid of anything:
“For two weeks, her parents were gone, and during this time Pepa took care of her brother as she did when they were not in the jungle. She prepared meals. She went to the market and mopped the floors and fed the chickens, of course. She made sure that Kurt took a bath every day and helped him with his lessons. When her parents returned from the jungle, their clothes caked in red mud, their breaths smelling of hunger, Pepa washed their clothes, stomping and rinsing them over and over again, the water flowing red like blood. Then she made them a twelve-egg omelet, for the protein, and fed them mounds of rice and fried bananas. After the meal, which they ate dutifully and in silence, they slept for twenty-four hours straight. “
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Published: Feb 2, 2012
Length: 9 minutes (2,401 words)
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[Fiction] The story of a couple’s life, in 11 places:
They stand on a rock ledge beside the shore, boy and girl, leaning together, their bare shoulders touching, as the adults unfold and arrange cots. Her father watches them as he sips from his bottle, though, and he knows what the night means. He calls the boy’s name—hey, Will, c’mere!—and the invitation is a command. The girl squeezes Will’s fingers as he leaves her side. When he’s gone the mother comes and places an arm around her daughter, whispering, and the lake whispers back, expectant, and through the giant cottonwood trees on the far shore an orange and lunatic moon hides in the branches.
“Eleven Beds.” — William Harrison, Missouri Review (Sept. 1, 2002)
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The New York Observer covers our “Behind The Longreads” event with New York magazine:
“It’s somehow thrilling and somewhat unbelievable that there is now a thriving community of lovers of long-form periodical nonfiction,” Mr. Moss told a packed audience of readers and—judging by the technical specificity of the question-and-answer session—fellow writers at Housing Works Bookstore.
“Longreads is an especially gratifying corrective to the comments I read at NYMag.com complaining that anything over 400 words is too long and therefore necessarily boring,” Mr. Moss said.
“The Long and Short of New York Magazine’s Longreads.” — Kat Stoeffel, New York Observer
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Longreads Pick
[Fiction] The story of a couple’s life, in 11 places:
“They stand on a rock ledge beside the shore, boy and girl, leaning together, their bare shoulders touching, as the adults unfold and arrange cots. Her father watches them as he sips from his bottle, though, and he knows what the night means. He calls the boy’s name—hey, Will, c’mere!—and the invitation is a command. The girl squeezes Will’s fingers as he leaves her side. When he’s gone the mother comes and places an arm around her daughter, whispering, and the lake whispers back, expectant, and through the giant cottonwood trees on the far shore an orange and lunatic moon hides in the branches.”
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Published: Sep 1, 2002
Length: 16 minutes (4,207 words)
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[Fiction] A trip from the Jersey Shore to jail:
My usual connection wasn’t by the pier on the beach. It started to rain, so I pulled my shirt over my head and ducked under the pier. It stank like hell under there, like fish guts and piss. Thunder boomed and the sky tore open. It couldn’t last, though. These summer showers only run about 10 minutes. I was squeezing out my shirt when a homeless guy came up to me from out of the back.
“Hey, you smoke pot?” he asked. The man was hunched over and wasted. He looked like Keith Richards without a guitar.
“Why do you want to know?” I asked.
“Some guy was here and he dropped a bag by accident.”
“Motherfuckerland.” (Chapter One) — Ed Lin, Giant Robot
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Longreads Pick
[Fiction] A trip from the Jersey Shore to jail:
“My usual connection wasn’t by the pier on the beach. It started to rain, so I pulled my shirt over my head and ducked under the pier. It stank like hell under there, like fish guts and piss. Thunder boomed and the sky tore open. It couldn’t last, though. These summer showers only run about 10 minutes. I was squeezing out my shirt when a homeless guy came up to me from out of the back.
“‘Hey, you smoke pot?’ he asked. The man was hunched over and wasted. He looked like Keith Richards without a guitar.
“‘Why do you want to know?’ I asked.
“‘Some guy was here and he dropped a bag by accident.’
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Published: Jan 20, 2012
Length: 8 minutes (2,059 words)
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Nieman Storyboard’s “Why’s This So Good” explores what makes classic narrative nonfiction stories worth reading.
This week, Bruce Gillespie takes a look at Andrea Curtis’s “Small Mercies,” which was originally published in Toronto Life:
A compelling narrative and a richly detailed behind-the-scenes look at a NICU would, on its own, be enough to hook any reader. But Curtis doesn’t stop there. She ups the ante by introducing another element to the piece: the question of how much money and effort should be spent on high-risk preemies at a time when fertility treatments and other medical advances have made them increasingly common in North America.
“Why’s this so good?” No. 29: Andrea Curtis and the rhythm of mercy
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