“’I’m good,’ I told him. I didn’t tell him I was running eleven miles, playing two hours of ball, and eating eight hundred calories a day.”
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Posted inEssays & Criticism, Feature, Nonfiction, Story
How I Got My Shrink Back
An entanglement with her shrink-stalking protege teaches Susan Shapiro something about forgiveness.
Posted inNonfiction
‘Brokenness and Holiness Really Go Together’: Darcey Steinke on Menopause
Darcey Steinke says that most menopause memoirs “end with this come-to-Jesus moment of, ‘Then I accepted hormones.’ I’m not against it, but … I wanted to hear what it’s like for other women.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Books, Profiles & Interviews
Arranging Your Body in Space: Talking Identity, Memoir, and Twins with Leah Dieterich
“One-eighth of all natural pregnancies begin as twins,” Leah Dieterich writes in her memoir, “but early in pregnancy, one twin becomes less viable and is compressed against the wall of the uterus or absorbed by the other twin.” This concept of a vanishing twin, a term coined in the year of Dieterich’s birth, frames the […]
Posted inBooks, Essays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Story, Unapologetic Women
There Is No Other Way To Say This
“Tell them on the outside,” Carolyn Forché’s Salvadoran mentor instructed her. Her memoir is her latest attempt. Its elliptical lyricism, like that of her poetry, runs circles around censorship.
Posted inNonfiction
Family Animals
In an excerpt from her new memoir, Grace Talusan fondly remembers the badly behaved dog that won her skeptical father’s heart.
Posted inUncategorized
How to Pitch Personal Essays to Longreads: An Updated Guide
New submissions guidelines, plus information about our new essay series.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story, Writing
‘As a Grown Woman, I Still Have To Continuously Learn To Say No’
Memoirist Tanya Marquardt talks about consent, trauma, and investigating our memories in the age of #MeToo.
Posted inNonfiction
Truly Seeing the River: An Interview with Writer Boyce Upholt
Writing about the culture and beauty of the Mississippi Delta requires seeing the mighty river as more than a line of water.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books, Profiles & Interviews, Story
Nic and David Sheff on ‘Beautiful Boy’ and Telling Addiction Stories Responsibly
Nic and his father David Sheff’s memoirs about grappling with Nic’s addiction are the basis for the new movie ‘Beautiful Boy.’ It was important to them that the movie communicate what addiction really is — an illness.
