What gets published is rarely what got pitched. Sources bail, circumstances shift, conflicts fizzle. Reporting out stories that go nowhere is a frustrating, tedious business – unless, of course, they turn into something good. Such was Wyatt Stayner’s experience in putting together a story called “Getting Out of Poverty in Oregon,” this week’s College Longreads […]
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Posted inEditor's Pick
My State of Emergency
Reflections on life, death, and Obamacare inside Oakland’s main trauma ward. Working in the Highland ER means knowing the backstory of a part of Oakland that most of my friends and neighbors will never see. In my car, stopped at a red light, I find myself unconsciously filling in the bios and medical histories of […]
Posted inNonfiction
Longreads Best of 2013 Postscript: Monica Potts on the Homeless Families of 'The Weeklies'
The Weeklies Monica Potts | The American Prospect | March 2013 | 29 minutes (7,360 words) Monica Potts is a senior writer for The American Prospect. I did the reporting for ‘The Weeklies,’ about homeless families living in a suburban hotel outside of Denver, Colorado, a year ago. I lived with in the Ramada Inn […]
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
The 2014 Pulitzer Prize Winners
This year’s Pulitzer Prize winners are out: The Washington Post and The Guardian shared a Pulitzer for public service for their reporting on the Edward Snowden leaks and widespread NSA surveillance, the Boston Globe was honored for its coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing, Chris Hamby of the Center for Public Integrity won for his black […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Most Difficult Age to Be When You Work in Hollywood
“The Writer’s Guild of America has a term for my situation: They call it ‘The Gap.’ It’s the time period between when your years as a working writer end and your retirement begins. I actually have an excellent pension for when I finally retire. The Guild is a strong union and it has negotiated an […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction
The Art of Running from the Police
A young man concerned that the police will take him into custody comes to see danger and risk in the mundane doings of everyday life. To survive outside prison, he learns to hesitate when others walk casually forward, to see what others fail to notice, to fear what others trust or take for granted.
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
What It’s Like for Renters in America: A Reading List
These are three stories of hellish renting experiences in major American cities.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Why Abercrombie Is Losing Its Shirt
In the early ’90s, Mike Jeffries gave struggling retailer Abercrombie and Fitch new life by selling a specific kind of lifestyle to teenage shoppers who “wanted to belong.” Times have changed, and the retailer needs to as well: Until relatively recently, Abercrombie’s numerous press scandals followed a predictable pattern: a flood of petitions and angry […]
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction
Autistic and Searching for a Home
Between jail and the hospital, Savannah Shannon’s life is in limbo.
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews
Interview: Simon Rich on Guilt, Humor Writing, and Being the Worst Person Ever
“I’m certainly as revolting and privileged and narcissistic as any of the hipsters described in my book, if not more so. I mean, there’s nobody worse than me.”
