The art of writing romance novels: The romance heroine, though possessed of heart, intelligence and beauty, is at the mercy of her own self-criticism most of the time. As the story begins, she is scared and isolated, poor, or abandoned, or lonely. Not infrequently, the book opens with her having just suffered some terrible loss; […]
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What to Do?
[Fiction] A man’s romance with a psychic: The psychic from the Third Base suckered drunk-me into getting a reading: twenty buckaroos. She had a table set up and was circling the bar in her hoop earrings and a fake mole that was supposed to be gypsy somehow, looking for customers. Real gypsies have a hair […]
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A personal history of joining, and leaving, the Mormon Church: When I meet with the first two landlords in Beverly Hills, they’ve already seen my credit files and don’t seem to want to know much more about me other than why I’m standing on their property. At my third stop, I speak into an intercom […]
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The life and last days of Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was killed during a Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya: It’s curious that a kid from California who grew up knowing nothing about the Arab world would come to devote his career to the Middle East and North Africa—as opposed to, […]
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Reading List: What's In A Dream? Writers Explore New York
Emily Perper is a freelance editor and reporter, currently completing a service year in Baltimore with the Episcopal Service Corps. As my service year winds down and I begin to look for jobs, I’m simultaneously drawn to and repulsed by the New York mythos. Here are four pieces that explore the romance, the real estate, […]
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Reading List: 6 Great Sci-Fi Stories About Robots
Hilary Armstrong is a literature student at U.C. Santa Barbara and a Longreads intern. She recently shared six stories for the science-fiction newbie, and a reading list for Fantasy Newbies. These stories offer a little breadth, a little curiosity, and a little levity to the idea of artificial life.
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Reading List: Love in the Time of Context
Emily Perper is a freelance editor and reporter, currently completing a service year in Baltimore with the Episcopal Service Corps. One reason I admire longform journalism is its ability to tell stories. Some of these stories gain national attention. Some are perfected in an MFA workshop. Some are written on the backs of receipts, after […]
Posted inNonfiction, Story
Caught Up in the Cult Wars: Confessions of a New Religious Movement Researcher
Susan J. Palmer | University of Toronto Press | 2001 | 38 minutes (9,328 words) The below article comes recommended by Longreads contributing editor Julia Wick, and we’d like to thank the author, Susan J. Palmer, for allowing us to share it with the Longreads community.
