On finding joy in the writing process, embracing friction, and developing your voice.
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Posted inEditor's Pick
Margaret Atwood Is Ready to Let It Rip
“With exactly nothing to prove and no one left to impress, she seemed happiest bantering.”
Posted inQuotes
Going into Starbucks to Order Butter Tea
“Pema wants to ask Jamal, Have you seen the news? But of course he hasn’t. He’s got other things to think about and now so does she.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Problem With Canon
“It’s the best of times and the worst of times to be a fan.”
Posted inEssays & Criticism
Poets in the Machine
Why does the literary world still hold online writing at arm’s length?
Posted inReading List
‘Actually Really Sacred’: A George Saunders Reading List
Nine essays and interviews from literature’s favorite laureate of compassion.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Falls
“Come to think of it, it was possible, even probable, that the boat had already gone over the Falls or hit the Snag.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Reading Joan Didion Taught Me How to Not Write About Hawaiʻi
“Didion depicts Hawaiʻi as a place that exists solely in the white American imagination, and, because of this, her journalism is a fiction.”
Posted inQuestionnaire
The Longreads Questionnaire, Featuring Cory Doctorow
The author of Enshittification and the new The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI on hammock life, the joy of pulp, and writing through it.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Butter Tea at Starbucks
“The flames flap with a noise like laundry on a line. The fire is an orange column. A plastic bag pirouettes in mid-air. The camera, unsteady, lingers and lingers. And in the middle, the figure stands upright, stoic or suicidal. Pema thinks: she’s already dead.”
