The writer describes her process of reporting and shaping her recent essay, “The State of Waiting,” which explores love in the shadow of war and immigration policy.
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The Lies Told to Speak to a Princess
The full story behind the scoop to interview Princess Diana has remained hidden for a quarter of a century — until now.
The Joy of New Words and the Week’s Top 5
“Yet I still doggy paddle in impostor syndrome. For I am not a biologist or cetologist, nor an oceanographer. I am just a woman with a pen, a profound love for water, and an eye for noticing patterns in the currents, eddies, and swirls of living.” Sometimes words aren’t enough. Or, at least, existing words […]
Talking Craft With the Writer and Editor Behind The Atavist’s New Issue
In this excerpt from The Creative Nonfiction Podcast, host Brendan O’Meara talks to Bill Donahue and Atavist editor Jonah Ogles about their work on “The Voyagers.”
Where Truffles Thrive, the Week’s Top 5, and a Member Drive
“Before we became such a complex profusion of cells, we were driven by chemical impulse, which a truffle knows better than anyone. That’s why they fetch the prices they do. Why animals will harm themselves to unearth a fruit. Why truffle hunters are poisoning one another’s dogs. Why suspected truffle thieves in French orchards get […]
What the Journey Brings, and Our Weekly Top 5
“I-95 is an artery of ambition, movement, and flight. A place where millions of people hurry toward love and loss, carrying their hope, their grief, their ordinary Tuesdays, all at 70 miles per hour.” A favorite program of mine is Race Across the World. The concept is simple: Teams must cross entire countries without flying, armed only […]
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Recommending noteworthy reads from Tim Prudente and Stokely Baksh, Rachel Aviv, Abby Tickell, Nick Zarzycki, and Andrea Sachs.
Walking on Faith and the Week’s Top 5
“Most people here were trying to find a way to live with events that could have broken their lives: absence, illness, loss, death. How could I fault them for something I also wanted, which was to wring meaning from things that have none?” “Why was I stumbling alongside this mass of the devout?” This is […]
A Trip to Twin Peaks and the Week’s Top 5
“I’d taken for granted how strange his work is—in the defiantly non-naturalistic performances he elicits from his actors and the surreal sheen of his stories and characters—until I started trying to explain the plot of Twin Peaks to Riley on our drive to Washington.” This week, we pay homage to director David Lynch, with Katherine […]
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Today we’re featuring stories about YouTube pranksters, marathon cheats, cephalopods, sleep and a massive collection of restaurant menus. 1. Vigilantes for Views: The YouTube Pranksters Harassing Suspected Scam Callers in India Andrew Deck and Raksha Kumar | Rest of World | January 10, 2023 | 5,737 words Justice can mean equality, and it can also mean retribution. In the case of Artsiom […]


