Tag: storytelling

We need to learn how to talk about our irreversible mistakes. Historian Kate Brown says the first step is to resist the Chernobylization of knowledge.

What the history of folktales reveals about the role storytelling played in human evolution.

The author learned how to tell stories from her psychic mother.

“Who lives? Who dies? Who tells your story?”

In her new book, Elizabeth Rush gives voice to poor communities and communities of color who are the first victims of the rising sea.

Diana Arterian’s sad, lyrical essay on the legacy of the Armenian Genocide in the diaspora centers on a family story that everyone has heard — but that no one knows the truth of.

On showing, telling, and finding one’s way as a literary writer of color.

Assessing Joan Didion’s legacy reveals a fascination with the nature of narrative that often supersedes the author’s subjects.

Longreads’ Essays Editor on the importance of budgeting for personal narratives.

Frank Matt, inspired by PJ Harvey’s 2011 album Let England Shake, shares an article that resonates for each song on the record.

How we feel about a person’s privacy seems to correlate with how much control they have in the decision to open up.

Caroline Framke shadowed the crew of FX’s Cold War spy drama The Americans during the production of season four episode “Clark’s Place” and explained how the show was made.

In the two years since I compiled the first installation of “The Lives of Nuns,” Autostraddle wrote about queer nuns in history, Racked shadowed (fake) nuns growing marijuana, and The Huffington Post reported on a nun’s murder and the students who want the truth. Those stories and more are included below. Seclude yourself and read.

The thin margins of the IRL economy.

Former Wall Street Journal reporter Barry Newman reflects on 43 years of feature stories that explore the eccentric humanity of our world.

Save the date! On June 24, Longreads will be hosting a free night of storytelling at the Booksmith in San Francisco, featuring: Clara Jeffery (Mother Jones) Mat Honan (BuzzFeed) Susie Cagle (journalist & illustrator) Elizabeth Lopatto (The Verge) Emily Thelin (writer, Food & Wine) Dan Stone (Radio Silence) * * * Wednesday, June 24, 7:30 p.m. The Booksmith […]

At the time, the stories we read seemed to me a means to an end, grueling exercises for the tender muscles of my developing Arabic. Only more recently have I wondered what it might feel like to read them as someone living under the Assad regime. A story, at its best, can make us feel less […]

To try to figure out what exactly that story is and why we still have it, we have to separate out the folk tale that is Cinderella, though, from the turn of phrase that is “Cinderella story.” Americans will call almost anything a Cinderella story that involves a good thing happening to someone nice. We slap that title on movies and books, but also on basketball games won by tiny schools full of scrawny nerds, small businesses that thrive and even political ascendancies that upend established powers.

Mike Nichols, the beloved director of stage and screen—from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate, to Barefoot in the Park and Working Girl— died Nov. 19, 2014 at the age of 83. Here are four pieces on the life of the artist.

Lately there has been some angst about the state of longform journalism on the Internet. So I thought I’d share some quick data on what we’ve seen within the Longreads community:

After the class, I asked Gruchow if I could talk to him about writing. A few days later, he welcomed me into his home, told me to sit down, and offered me a cup of coffee. He was bald and portly and kind. His beard made him seem like the professor he sometimes was. He […]