Diana Spechler recalls fleeing her life in New York City for a new one with a painter in his village in central Mexico.
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Posted inReading List
Longreads Best of 2019: Sports Writing
We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here is the best in sports writing.
Posted inStory
‘I Surprise Myself With This Refusal To Let Go’: Kate Zambreno on the ‘Ghostly Correspondence’
“I thought for sure, I’ll never write about Rilke again. I’m done with Rilke! I’m sick of Rilke! Rilke — no more. But then the other day … I just started researching something about Rilke.”
Posted inNonfiction
In Search of Etty Hillesum
The work of a young Jewish diarist, writing in Amsterdam around the time Anne Frank began her famous diary, shows the transformation of pain into radical altruism.
Posted inHistory, Nonfiction, Quotes
To Be a Lexicographer Is to Surrender to Folly
On the never-ending, unattainable quest to create the perfect English dictionary.
Posted inBooks, Fiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story
‘Archive, Archive, Archive’: Valeria Luiselli on Reading In Order To Write
To write “Lost Children Archive,” Valeria Luiselli studied the refugee crisis “obliquely,” reading about other historical moments of children’s mass displacement, amassing a reader’s archive of loss.
Posted inNonfiction
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.
Posted inBooks, Essays & Criticism, Quotes, Unapologetic Women
There Was Nothing We Could Have Done, Because We’re Racist and You’re Black
“The prevalent perception of black women as unruly bodies and incompetent caretakers overrules even the most dominant stereotype about us—namely, that we are superhuman.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Culture, Essays & Criticism, Feature, Story
Funk Lessons in Sonic Solitude
“Joi’s recorded performances embodied all the funkiness my little soul had been waiting for.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Current Events, Nonfiction, Story
Remembering Ken Nordine
The ambitious radio personality created his own form of expression, called “word jazz,” to properly accomodate his musical voice and artistic ambitions.
