Posted inGuest Pick

How A Black High School Basketball Coach Transformed A White, Mennonite Town: A Longreads Guest Pick By Chris Mahr

Chris Mahr is the managing editor of Lost Lettermen, a college sports website and athlete database. “Talk to any young sportswriter today and odds are that their introduction to both Sports Illustrated’s long-form journalism and renowned writer Gary Smith are one in the same: ‘Higher Education.’ Smith’s March 2001 masterpiece tells the tale of Perry […]

Posted inEditor's Pick

Courage and Survival

The Legends of the Fall author and poet on aging: “Obviously I need courage to deal with my current dysfunctional body. And religion? The bible says that the kingdom of God is within you. If so, I haven’t noticed it lately. I’m not making light of devotion or a mother praying to bring her baby […]

Posted inEditor's Pick

How My Mother Disappeared

Adapted from Witchel’s forthcoming memoir All Gone. A daughter adjusts after her mother develops stroke-related dementia: “Mom faced me. ‘I want you to kill me,’ she said solemnly. For decades, she insisted that if she was mentally compromised in any way, her children were to pull the plug. But the situations we’d imagined never included […]

Posted inEditor's Pick

Fresno

A history of sprawl and escape routes in a Central California town, from the perspective of one family searching for its own escape: “As I started high school my mom became convinced my dad had ruined her life. They’d married quickly, and for superficial reasons. Two immigrants from the same country, raised in the manacles […]

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