These are the stories I couldn’t stop thinking about—the ones that ask us to sit with darkness and still find reasons to keep going.
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Posted inUncategorized
On the Hollow Highs of Hallmark Holiday Films (and More)
“Filmmakers use a character’s grief to evoke viewers’ sympathy and cravings for a quick fix. The Christmas widower trope exploits these very human tendencies, triggering sadness for the sake of sadness and making the cheap promise of a neat resolution tied up in a pretty bow.” We hope you enjoyed last week’s story, “Christmas on […]
Posted inNewsletter
Embracing the Struggle to Write
Episode highlights from The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, featuring The Chronology of Water author Lidia Yuknavitch.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Emily Strasser Wrestles with a Family Secret
“Secrets are passed down. And so if we don’t figure shit out, for lack of a better term, then we perpetuate those same harms on the next generation.”
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List, Story
Families Like Ours: A Reading List for the Children of Queer Parents
Some of us got to stay with our moms or dads. Others did not.
Posted inQuestionnaire
The Longreads Questionnaire, Featuring Rebecca Solnit
The author of The Beginning Comes After the End talks about jackrabbits, her own “informational hypervigilance,” and the one word she won’t stop using.
Posted inTop 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Recommending memorable pieces by Seth Freed Wessler, Stuart McGurk, Jon Mooallem, Ben Lerner, Kiese Laymon, and Amelia Tait.
Posted inNewsletter
The Wonder of Make Believe
In this excerpt, Mac Barnett recalls how dull “early reader” books inspired him to write books for kids.
Posted inReading List
Pawns, Puppet Heads, and Paranoia: An Eccentrics Reading List
“They’re a little eccentric” is a phrase I suspect most of us have heard used to describe a certain kind of memorable person. For me, it evokes my childhood dentist — an elderly man who favored colorful bow ties and humming loudly as he worked, and who once wagged his finger in my face and […]
