Best of 2021: Personal Essays By Longreads Feature The personal essays that we can’t stop thinking about.
‘Writing Was a Way to Have My Say’: An Interview with Author Sejal Shah By Krista Stevens Highlight “I didn’t know at first what I was doing. I was just trying to represent the inside of the feeling.”
A Beautiful, Rugged Place: Erosion of the Body By Longreads Feature The life-long writer, teacher, and activist believed she could save a piece of land or a species, but after her brother took his life, she questioned her optimism and how to grieve for him and the planet.
Searching for The Sundays By David Obuchowski Feature When music writers are also music fans, they can walk a line between appreciative and intrusive.
All the Obstacles in a Mother’s Way By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Everyone has something to say about this mother’s body, career, and parental choices.
It’s Like That: The Makings of a Hip-Hop Writer By Michael Gonzales Feature Hip-hop was a different kind of music that needed a different kind of writer to cover it. This is how Michael A. Gonzales came of age in a time when Black writers began breaking the white ceiling.
The Ways of a Wandering Spirit By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight For many of us, road trips are also trips through the self.
Learning About Love from Strangers By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight There are the marks lovers leave on trees and rocks, and the marks lovers leave on each other.
Prince of the Midwest By Longreads Feature For one Wisconsin farm boy, Minneapolis will always be the city of Purple Rain.
When Music Speaks to Our Experience By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Anton Webern’s Concerto, Opus 24 had the structure that was missing from one young musician’s life.
Living to Tell About It By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Struggling with trauma, sexual objectification, and self-harm, the teenage T Kira Madden found salvation in her close relationships with other young women.
The Cabin By Lavinia Spalding Feature In a tiny, remote Utah town, Lavinia Spalding learns the difference between longing and belonging.
When Black Male Singers Were Sex Symbols By Ericka Blount Danois Feature Teddy Pendergrass was the R&B singer women wanted and who men wanted to be. And the one whose life-sized cardboard cutout stood in one family’s living room.
Land Not Theirs By Madison Davis Feature Reckoning with a religious upbringing means confronting religion’s role in oppressing women and people of color.
A Childhood in Cars By Joshua James Amberson Feature How one young man cut against the grain of American masculinity and freed himself from car culture.
You Don’t Own Me By Joe Bonomo Feature Some fans prefer small club shows, others like arena rock shows, but do we care what the bands prefer?
Finding Grace Between Love and Loss By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight One single mother’s journey to construct a sense of self that’s true to herself, not to other people.
Ugly, Bitter, and True By Suzanne Rivecca Feature After years of feeling hopeless and barely human, one talented writer manages to find her will to live.
J.R.’s Jook and the Authenticity Mirage By Longreads Feature When a young white musician gets invited to a house-party, the musicians he plays with show him a slice of blues culture many people assumed had died.
5 Questions for Kristi Coulter About Writing, Humor, and Getting Sober By Aaron Gilbreath Commentary “If I couldn’t find humor in sobriety, I probably wouldn’t make it.”
Making Peace with the Site of a Suicide By Liz Arnold Feature One woman reconciles with her father’s death on her family’s property.
How To Build An Intellectual By Hedia Anvar Feature For one young immigrant, growing up Iranian in New York City meant raising herself.
Haruki Murakami Strolls Through His Childhood Home After the Hanshin Earthquake By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight When Haruki Murakami walked the long distance between his childhood home outside Kobe and the city center, he found a city changed by the great Kobe earthquake, and the constant spector of violence.
A Beginner’s Guide to Fly Fishing With Your Father By Heather Radke Feature It was the place he came to feel wild, and I was ready to trespass into the world of men.
Judgement and Epiphany on Pittsburgh’s Number 79 Bus By Aaron Gilbreath Feature The seven stops on the bus lead one resident to an understanding about the way he views his neighbors.
Five Early Lessons in Parenting By Aaron Gilbreath Feature Steven Church discovers his own fragility and limitations in these five discussions with his son.
This Is How They Saved Me By Michelle Legro Feature One month after her father was arrested, Neda Semnani and her family were taken on a dangerous journey to be smuggled out of Iran.
The 25 Most Popular Longreads Exclusives of 2017 By Longreads Reading List The personal essays, original reporting, and collaborations that were our most-read stories of the year.
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