What Ever Happened To the Truth? By Bridey Heing Feature Michiko Kakutani is interested in how the distinction between fact and fiction has blurred — and how this makes us all complicit.
Dead Girls: An Interview with Alice Bolin By Hope Reese Feature It’s clear we love the Dead Girl, enough to rehash and reproduce her story, to kill her again and again. But not enough to see a pattern.
Oregon’s Racist Past By Longreads Feature Starting in the mid-19th century, and extending through the mid-20th century, Oregon was arguably the most racist place outside the southern states, possibly even of all the states.
This Month in Books: ‘What Used To Be Me Before the World Buried It’ By Dana Snitzky Commentary Everyone is feeling very alone in this month’s books newsletter.
Getting Tricked by Helen DeWitt By Brittany Allen Feature Helen DeWitt’s hectic, disruptive style reflects the content of her stories: the difficulty of living an authentic life, or telling anything like a “story,” in a ruthlessly disruptive world.
Eating Alone By Longreads Feature We’re eating alone more often than in any previous generation. But why should a meal on our own be uninspired? Why shouldn’t the French saying “life is too short to drink bad wine” still apply?
A Person Alone: Leaning Out with Ottessa Moshfegh By Hope Reese Feature Leaning in doesn’t work in real life. When I was writing, I kind of hoped that it would. I think I hoped that the answers are always within me. And when I reached the end of the book, it was like: there are no answers.
Your Best Work Comes from Scaring Yourself By Ryan Chapman Feature Essayist Chelsea Hodson had to give herself permission to be uncomfortable.
The Inward Empire By christiandonlan Feature A new father with early-stage MS sets out to understand the interiors of his daughter’s mind, and his own.
Angrily Experiencing the Best Days of Our Lives By Linda Kinstler Feature Ukrainian author and poet Serhiy Zhadan writes about resisting corruption and coping with loss in a society that is spiraling senselessly into conflict.
Author Carmen Maria Machado on the Next Phase of #MeToo By Danielle Jackson Highlight Carmen Maria Machado discusses the nuances of “benevolent sexism,” who gets to define the #MeToo movement, and how it should progress.
‘I Had Nothing To Do With It But Have Been Punished’: Issac Bailey On His Brother Moochie, the Murderer By Tori Telfer Feature Issac Bailey wants us to recognize that the families of perpetrators need just as much support as the families of victims.
The Camouflage Artist: Two World Wars, Two Loves, and One Great Deception By Mary Horlock Feature In the first war, Joseph Gray used his art to reveal his fellow soldiers. In the next war, he used it to hide them.
Old In Art School By Longreads Feature At 64, Nell Painter left a secure teaching position and went back to school to study art.
Viv Albertine on Dating Again in Her 50s By Longreads Feature In my teens I was upset that I was too young to go out with any of the boys in my favorite bands. Now they’re all with women who weren’t even born when I had that thought.
Ghost Writer: The Story of Patience Worth, the Posthumous Author By Joy Lanzendorfer Feature The most remarkable thing about Patience Worth wasn’t that she was dead. It was that all she wanted to do was write books.
This Month in Books: ‘We Have Nothing to Weigh Our Hearts Against’ By Dana Snitzky Commentary When I look at this month’s Books Newsletter, all I can think about are borders, crossings, the terrible distances between people who have been separated.
Fairy Scapegoats: A History of the Persecution of Changeling Children By Longreads Feature Distraught over a sick or disabled child, parents would torture — sometimes even kill — what they believed to be a malevolent stand-in for a stolen baby.
A Crocodile In Paris: The Queer Classics of Qiu Miaojin By Ankita Chakraborty Feature As the first woman in Chinese literature to come out as openly gay, Qiu Miaojin adopted and humanized the bestial expectations of a cruel public.
For Me, With Love and Squalor By Lauren Markham Feature After publishing her first book, Lauren Markham begins the long search for what she truly wanted after writing it.
Storytelling the Flood: Elizabeth Rush on Empathy and Climate Change By Bradley Babendir Feature In her new book, Elizabeth Rush gives voice to poor communities and communities of color who are the first victims of the rising sea.
Somewhere Under My Left Ribs: A Nurse’s Story By Longreads Feature The landscape of operating theaters must be terrifying for patients, but it’s becoming normal for me. It’s amazing what you can get used to.
‘I Was a Storm of Confetti’: Michael Pollan On Why It’s a Good Idea To Lose Your Self By Hope Reese Feature Michael Pollan talks about using psychedelic drugs, escaping his own ego, and the therapeutic potential of seeing yourself spread out over the landscape like a coat of paint.
Nell Battle Lewis, Storyteller for Jim Crow By Longreads Feature How an otherwise high-minded social reformer preserved and perpetuated her white supremacist worldview.
Masters of Contradiction By Brittany Allen Feature Two new books offer fresh perspective on “Otherhood,” that condition in which characters do constant, exhausting battle — for the most part — inside their own heads.
Who Sank El Faro? An Interview With Rachel Slade By Joshunda Sanders Feature Having solved the mystery of the largest maritime disaster in a generation, Rachel Slade can see how what happened on the ocean is an allegory for what’s happening on dry land.
The Tether Between Two Worlds: An Interview with Sergio De La Pava By Tobias Carroll Feature His new novel is about mass incarceration, indoor football, and parallel universes. De La Pava says that when “you dig deep, you start seeing the way everything is connected.”
When the Movies Went West By Longreads Feature Scorned by stage actors and mocked by the theater-going upper classes, filmmakers nevertheless developed a bold new art form — but they needed better weather.
Why Psilocybin and LSD Don’t Deserve Their Bad Rap By Krista Stevens Highlight A survey of recent reads says that psychedelic drugs like psilocybin and LSD are not only enjoying a renaissance — they might actually be helpful to humans.
