Nina MacLaughlin discusses her retelling of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. “[In] my very vague high school memories…there was no discussion of the fact that this book is just rape after rape after rape.”
Search results
Longreads Best of 2019: Profiles
We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here is the best in profiles.
The Gilded Age of (Unpaid) Internet Writing
How ’90s webzines heralded the best — and worst — of today’s online media landscape.
Publishing the Best of the Desert: An Interview With Ken Layne
“If you’re doing something small, something that’s mostly your labor and vision, then stick to what makes you satisfied.”
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Christian Miller, Megan Rose, and Robert Faturechi; Robin Hemley; David Gauvey Herbert; Ian Parker; and Meghan Daum.
‘I’m Incredulous That People Do This Repeatedly. The Second Book Thing Is So Real.’
Mary H.K. Choi discusses her latest novel, which examines how “holograms and digital envoys” represent us online, and why it feels like her “second book signals the death of my first.”
Whatever Happened to ______ ?
Envy over her success led her husband, also a writer, to become violent. She fights every day for her safety — and to avoid being relegated to obscurity like so many writers who are mothers.
When American Media Was (Briefly) Diverse
An economic downturn in 2008 shuttered numerous publications and further marginalized people of color in an already minimally integrated industry. But in the 90’s and early-aughts, multicultural publications flourished, providing an alternative model for journalism that bears remembering.
One Dollar a Word? That’ll Be $28,000
Fresh off Watergate, Carl Bernstein next turned to expose the connection between the CIA and newspapers. For his efforts, he was paid $28,000. Inside one of publishing’s biggest boondoggles.
Worth Their Wait
Before the internet, music weeklies like NME and Melody Maker shaped English listeners’ tastes and the national discourse. The slower pace of print publishing created a more digestible news cycle, a deeper reading experience, deep loyalties, and a thrilling anticipation between issues.

