In Ling Ma’s “Severance” — a novel she began to write after getting laid off, while living partly on severance pay — the characters keep going to work, even though they know it’s the end of the world.
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A Genre of Myths: A Jazz Reading List
Created in New Orleans and played around the world, the music we call jazz is filled with genius, legend, and tragedy.
The Need for Distance: Jaclyn Gilbert on Writing and Running
For author Jaclyn Gilbert, revising her writing is much like doing the same running loops over and over, to the point where she doesn’t have to think about where she’s going anymore.
The Writers’ Roundtable: Fiction vs. Nonfiction
A conversation between writers Eva Holland, Benjamin Percy, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Mary H.K. Choi, and Adam Sternbergh about writing on both sides of the fiction-nonfiction divide.
Hot for Teacher
When a student in her writing workshop submits a piece suggesting his character could ‘take’ a teacher just like her ‘atop her desk,’ Courtney Zoffness is flooded with memories of men touching her against her will.
The Danger of Befriending Celebrities
Once upon a time, nightlife journalist Michael Musto didn’t set the strongest boundaries with the boldfaced names he covered.
A Person Alone: Leaning Out with Ottessa Moshfegh
Leaning in doesn’t work in real life. When I was writing, I kind of hoped that it would. I think I hoped that the answers are always within me. And when I reached the end of the book, it was like: there are no answers.
Will Amazon Finally Kill New York?
A New Yorker reads “Seasonal Associate” in the age of HQ2.
Fire/Flood: A Southern California Pastoral
In and around Los Angeles, natural and man-made disasters have been inextricable for almost two centuries.
Editor’s Roundtable: Gossip, Dirt, and Reality (Podcast)
Longreads editors discuss stories in Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, ESPN, Kotaku, and The Globe and Mail.
