In the mountains of southwestern New Mexico, a seasoned fire lookout watches as his beloved forest and his personal life burn, and he tries to imagine what will arise from their ashes.
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Posted inArts & Culture, Essays & Criticism, Feature, Story, Writing
Find Yourself
From way back in ’80s Philadelphia, Elizabeth Isadora Gold remembers her first writing teacher, the mail art artist/lyricist Stu Horn.
Posted inTop 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Jayson Greene, Theresa Breuer, Christa Parravani, Alexandra Kimball, and Casey Taylor.
Posted inCommentary, Current Events, Discussions, Podcasts
Editor’s Roundtable: Just Put Some Eyes On There (Podcast)
Longreads editors discuss stories in Grub Street, The New Yorker, Gay Magazine, and The Verge.
Posted inEditor's Pick
What it Felt Like When ‘Cat Person’ Went Viral
A personal essay in which Kristen Roupenian writes about the experience of having “Cat Person” — her fictional short story about a young woman who goes through with sex she’d rather not have at the end of a bad date, published in the New Yorker in 2017 — go viral, become the subject of much […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
American Ghostwriter
An adventure as the Man Behind the Curtain for memoirs of the uber-rich.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
Not Quite Not White
Sharmila Sen grew up understanding distinctions between castes and religions, between the educated and the illiterate. Race was a distinction she didn’t understand until she came to America.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books, Reading List, Story, Uncategorized
Pages You Can Dance To: A Book List
Either Martin Mull or Frank Zappa or Elvis Costello once said writing about music is as pointless as dancing about architecture. Which doesn’t account for how I’ve danced to all these books.
Posted inNonfiction
Longreads Best of 2019: All of Our No. 1 Story Picks
Our top picks of the year, all in one place.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Story
Eight Things You Need to Know About Me and the Beach
A white woman came up to my mother, leaned in close and said, “We whites have to stick together against the Asian invasion.” My mother was ecstatic. “She liked me! They like me here!”
