Science fiction writer Eileen Gunn recently wrote in Smithsonian magazine about how the science fiction genre informs the way we think about the real world. Here, Gunn writes that big tech companies like Microsoft have hired science fiction writers to do “design fiction”—coming up with new technology ideas through imaginative works: Microsoft, Google, Apple and […]
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Posted inFiction, Nonfiction, Reading List
‘She’s Good, With a Capital G’: A Roxane Gay Reading List
A reading list could never do author Roxane Gay justice. For one thing, she’s incredibly prolific. She writes, edits, teaches and tweets. Within the past few months, she’s garnered acclaim for her intense novel, An Untamed State, and her collection of essays, Bad Feminist. These are just the facts. I don’t remember discovering Gay’s work. I remember requesting […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Wild Country: Remembering Edward Abbey
The author and environmental activist Edward Abbey, who passed away in 1989, would have been 88 today. Abbey—who Larry McMurtry dubbed “the Thoreau of the American West”—was known for his searing love of wilderness, particularly the deserts of the Southwest, and his progressive views. An excerpt from Desert Solitaire, his most famous non-fiction work, can be […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
How America’s Leading Science Fiction Authors Are Shaping Your Future
How science fiction writers inform the way we think about the real world: Jordin Kare, an astrophysicist at the Seattle-based tech company LaserMotive, who has done important practical and theoretical work on lasers, space elevators and light-sail propulsion, cheerfully acknowledges the effect science fiction has had on his life and career. “I went into astrophysics […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Madness and the Muse
Much has been made of the link between creativity and mental illness—but is it a fiction?
Posted inEvents, Nonfiction
Coming Oct. 29, NYC: A Night of Storytelling with This Land Press
Longreads & WordPress.com present
A special night of storytelling with
This Land
Featuring:
Mark Singer (The New Yorker)
Rilla Askew (Author, “Fire in Beulah”)
Ginger Strand (Author, “Inventing Niagara”)
Kiera Feldman (Writer, “Grace in Broken Arrow,” “This Is My Beloved Son”)
Marcos Barbery (Journalist and Documentarian, Writer, “From One Fire”)
Wednesday, Oct. 29th, 7:00 p.m.
Free Admission
Housing Works Bookstore Cafe
126 Crosby Street
New York, NY 10012
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes, Unapologetic Women
Jenny Diski on a Cancer Diagnosis and Keeping a Diary
We’d hardly got home before I said: ‘Well, I suppose I’m going to write a cancer diary.’ The only other thing I might have said was: ‘Well, I’m not going to write a cancer diary.’ Right there: a choice? I’m a writer, have been since I was small, and have earned my living at it […]
Posted inEvents, Nonfiction
Coming Oct. 29, NYC: A Night of Storytelling with This Land Press
Longreads & WordPress.com present
A special night of storytelling with
This Land
Featuring:
Mark Singer (The New Yorker)
Rilla Askew (Author, “Fire in Beulah”)
Ginger Strand (Author, “Inventing Niagara”)
Kiera Feldman (Writer, “Grace in Broken Arrow,” “This Is My Beloved Son”)
Marcos Barbery (Journalist and Documentarian, Writer, “From One Fire”)
Wednesday, Oct. 29th, 7:00 p.m.
Free Admission
Housing Works Bookstore Cafe
126 Crosby Street
New York, NY 10012
Posted inNonfiction, Story
Gravity
‘My daughter doesn’t have a father, or, she has two fathers, since I don’t know which man her father is. One of her fathers says it’s like Schrödinger’s cat in there.’
Posted inEvents, Nonfiction, Reading List
Reading List: Longreads and This Land Press at Housing Works
To get you ready for the big night, we’re thrilled to share a reading list of stories and books from the event’s featured storytellers.
