Tag: The Awl

How does a young, successful actor become a relatively unknown director of most of the television you watch? And what’s next?

On the pressure to pretend there’s no fallout after your parents’ divorce.

They seem to disappear when bad things are happening. And bad things are always happening.

People love him. And that’s what makes him a great editor.

Sarah Miller travels in exactly the way she’d hoped to avoid.

Sarah Miller travels to Japan to learn more about sochu, and ends up learning more about her own limitations as a traveler.

A reading list about fictional detectives and the authors who mastermind their literary crime-solving, as well as real-life detectives searching for the truth.

Six stories about our relationships with our hair.

Chris Pomorski joins avid hunter Tom Slaughter (yes, that’s his real name) on a bear hunt, visiting the woods and a check station for hunters to register their “harvests.”

“Editing is a fugue state; the time self-erases.”

There are franchises, retreat centers, books and consulting companies, all dedicated to the physical (and sometimes the New Age/metaphysical) benefits of a quick dip in an isolation tank.

News organizations, credibility, and who gets the exclusive interview.

The best stories of the week, as chosen by the editors of Longreads.

“Cheap coffee is one of America’s most unsung comfort foods.”

But really, what is a musician’s voice if not distinctive? Isn’t that… good? Entire pieces have been written about the voices of Bob Dylan and Tom Waits, so American and vital and wise in their manly scratchiness, like unshaved bristle and whiskey and dirt. Man voice make music good. Woman voice music bad: Too high. […]

Our favorite stories of the week.

It’s strange, in the years of Lena Dunham and Amy Schumer changing comedy, and Tina Fey making room in TV, and Hillary Clinton making her cicada-like, quadrennial return, to pan the camera across the rigid men’s club of the arts. From the Chelsea galleries to the spring and fall auctions at Sotheby’s and Christie’s (which […]

Keeping a place that serves drinks open is a difficult task no matter where you do it. As the bartender at my current favorite local bar, Sharlene’s on Flatbush in Brooklyn, told me, “You need to get at least half a million to open a bar in New York anymore. You need investors and shit,” […]

Joe Berkowitz has been writing a series for the Awl about modern relationships, and his final installment was published this week.

At The Awl, Dan Nosowitz writes about the history and singular charms of what’s called the “Greek salad,” and about the slippery nature of authenticity. After the financial agreement Greece recently signed with its creditors, it’s a good time to be reminded of the strength of Greek’s handiwork with greens, veggies and herbs, and their influence […]

Beyond Meat’s goal is a good one: to take your everyday meat eater and convince them, with low-impact, low-fat, and low-cost fake meat, to eventually cripple the livestock industry, which destroys the land, requires massive amounts of water and power, creates tons and tons of greenhouse gases, and encourages factory farming of monoculture crops. I […]

As the Japanese children’s book author Tarō Gomi once wrote: everyone poops. But we don’t talk about this openly or often enough. In fact, talking and reading about shit might make you want to hold your nose — but it’ll also open your eyes. Here are eight pieces about shit, from a DIY mixture a woman used to treat her life-threatening infection, to prehistoric poo that brings us one step closer to understanding the origins of life after the dinosaur age.

I have previously shared with you Balk’s Law (“Everything you hate about The Internet is actually everything you hate about people”) and Balk’s Second Law (“The worst thing is knowing what everyone thinks about anything”). Here I will impart to you Balk’s Third Law: “If you think The Internet is terrible now, just wait a […]

Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist. Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox. * * *

A man writes to a convicted killer. Fan letters to a troubled country star. Letters by parents. Here are five stories about the letters we write to one another.

I kept thinking of what the book was about: What it would say? What was its point? Why did it exist? People would ask me and I would say that it was about choices. Choices and their consequence. They would look at me like they didn’t understand. The book would have been about power—power in […]

Here’s the first official edition of Longreads’ Best of WordPress! We’ve scoured 22% of the internet to create a reading list of great storytelling — from publishers you already know and love, to some that you may be discovering for the first time. We’ll be doing more of these reading lists in the weeks and months to […]

Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist. Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox. * * *

At The Awl, Maria Bustillos talks to Adventure Time creator Pendleton Ward about the magic behind his wildly popular cartoon series that’s beloved by both children and adults. Here, Ward talks about his love of video games and their potential for storytelling: Oh man, the intensely emotional storytelling in games like ‘Gone Home’… it’s through […]

Back from dropping off the kids, and ready to write! Except I definitely have to exercise first. It’s going to be 90 degrees out there today and the dogs need to run and I don’t want to kill them—or worse, maim them and then decline chest-cracking at the billion-dollar emergency dog cancer spa. I know […]