How to Pitch Personal Essays to Longreads: An Updated Guide By Sari Botton Highlight New submissions guidelines, plus information about our new essay series.
Phone Call in The Age of Coronavirus By Max Feature Marcia Aldrich on why cell phones, so thin and light and little, don’t seem fitting for momentous calls, for life and death communications, or for last words.
With Your Support, We Can Continue to Be a Space for First-Person Storytelling By Cheri Lucas Rowlands Commentary Personal narratives are powerful. Help us support writers and artists who have these stories to tell.
A Survey of My Right Arm By Longreads Feature Why couldn’t this ailing appendage get over itself? Diagnosing a mysterious malady.
Sharing Our Stories Was Supposed to Dispel Our Shame By Sari Botton Highlight Emily Gould reconsiders the likelihood of women’s first-person writing bringing about change.
House of the Century By Daisy Alioto Feature Daisy Alioto reconsiders the nature of architecture while researching window alarms.
Whatever Happened to ______ ? By Longreads Feature 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.
Searching Sephora for an Antidote to Aging — and Grief By Abby Mims Feature Five years after her mother’s death, while still grieving and suddenly middle-aged, Abby Mims turns to beauty products to cure what ails her.
The Price of Dominionist Theology By Eve Ettinger Feature After leaving fundamentalism, Eve Ettinger grapples with the loaded theological heritage of evangelical personal finance teachings.
Elizabeth Wurtzel Made it Okay to Write ‘Ouch’ By Sari Botton Highlight Today’s memoirists and personal essay writers owe a debt of gratitude to the Prozac Nation author for rewriting an inhibiting rule.
What I Did for (Strange) Love By Laura Bond Feature As a teen, Laura Bond went all out to meet Depeche Mode — and to hang onto her best friend.
If My Scars Could Talk By Tega Oghenechovwen Feature Tega Oghenechovwen contemplates the ways in which acute childhood trauma can infect and compromise relationships later in life.
Jersey Girl By Longreads Feature Too Japanese for Americans and too American for the Japanese, one New Jersey native traces the influence of racism on her parents’ careers and her own life.
A Beloved Art Critic Sings His Swan Song By Sari Botton Highlight “Drink was destroying my life. Tobacco only shortens it, with the best parts over anyway.”
Borrowed Babies By Jill Christman Feature Five months into her first pregnancy, one writer pursues a research project about the history of home economics, as she struggles with her own concerns about motherhood.
Stumbling Into Joy By Kate Hopper Feature The electric bass chose her, but it took 44 years to heed the call.
California Burning By Tessa Love Feature A year after the Camp Fire, Tessa Love contemplates home, California’s undoing, and what it means to belong.
Records on Bone By Longreads Feature One young Ukrainian-American struggles to piece together a clear portrait of her parents’ difficult Soviet past, once they quit erasing, and began embracing, their legacy.
I’m 72. So What? By Catherine Texier Feature Catherine Texier pushes back against society’s dated ideas about older women, claiming her place among those who are determined to remain vibrant and relevant in the last decades of their lives.
Where Am I? By Longreads Feature After a lifetime of alienation, one woman discovered how her spacial disorientation could be a gift that connected her to strangers and made her less alone.
The Bonds Beyond Language By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Twins have bonds that exist beyond words, and they fill the gaps left by what cannot be said.
One Man’s Poison By Kyoko Mori Feature The only way to protect herself from her father was to erase him from her life, but she survived being his daughter by acting just like he did.
Better Late By Summer Block Feature From straightening her teeth to finding her true love, Summer Block has reached the milestones in her life later than most.
Remembering Woodstock ’94 By Steve Edwards Feature On the concert’s 25th anniversary, Steve Edwards reflects on the mud, the music, and the myths he lives by.
Finding My Father By Natassja Schiel Feature At age thirty-two, after years working as an exotic dancer, the daughter of a mysteriously absentee father finally puts together the pieces that had been missing her whole life.
School for Girls By Jasmin Aviva Sandelson Feature Years after recovering from anorexia, Jasmin Sandelson writes a letter to the high school friend she idolized, and explores how hunger, love, and envy shaped — and ended — their relationship.
Don’t Come Around Here No More By Rebecca Lehmann Feature Tom Petty’s psychedelic Alice in Wonderland video reminded one woman of the way sexual harassment shaped her adolescence and made her want to disappear.
Shovel, Knife, Story, Ax By Erika Howsare Feature When you live with animals, you collect killing stories.
Becoming Family By Jennifer Berney Feature Jennifer Berney explores how queer families challenge traditional notions of heredity and paternity.
‘Little Grandpa’ and The List By Abigail Rasminsky Feature When her grandfather died, Abigail Rasminsky learned about a part of his life she’d known nothing about.
