Your Best Work Comes from Scaring Yourself By Ryan Chapman Feature Essayist Chelsea Hodson had to give herself permission to be uncomfortable.
Arundhati Roy: “Fiction is a Universe” By Michelle Weber Highlight Booker Prize-winning author Arundhati Roy is the embodiment of concept that the personal is political, even (especially?) in her fiction.
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.
Dorothy Allison on how Shame Defines Class By Krista Stevens Highlight “What seemed to me life-saving was that I couldn’t lie. I couldn’t put a candy-coated gloss on anything.”
Anthony Bourdain and the Missing Piece By Ian Frisch Feature With magic, the goal is to give someone something they can carry around with them for a while.
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.
The Whole World is Naples Now By Michelle Weber Highlight Sprawling, crumbling, beautiful, rough — Elena Ferrante’s Naples shows us the world’s violent underbelly, with no pretense.
But What Will Your Parents Think? By Morgan Jerkins Feature Morgan Jerkins tackles the time-worn question of how far is too far to go in revealing yourself in first-person writing.
Maybe We’re the Circle By Megan Stielstra Feature Megan Stielstra and Nicole Piasecki talk about the shooting that changed their lives, who owns the story, and what to do with fear. Part three of a three-part series on gun violence.
The Changeling By Alexander Chee Feature Alexander Chee considers the ways in which answering the question, “What are you?” turned him into a writer.
Sharp Women Writers: An Interview With Michelle Dean By Natalie Daher Feature On Didion, Arendt, Malcolm, Ephron and other women writers who made an art of having an opinion.
‘Forgive Yourself. And Forgive Me.’ By Alice Driver Feature Alice Driver considers what lessons to take from a late uncle’s life.
Doomed in Nashville By Monica Drake Feature On a whirlwind book tour, Monica Drake fights to resist the pull of an emotional — and physical — abyss.
Barbara Ehrenreich on Writing to Think By Krista Stevens Highlight Barbara Ehrenreich on thinking as an antidote to “the unknown and potentially menacing.”
Vanishing As a Way to Reclaim Your Life By Aaron Gilbreath Feature On the eve of her marriage, an adventurous young woman tests how free she really wants to be.
A Mother’s Less-Than-True Story of Being a Child Bride By Michelle Legro Highlight Getting married in her swimsuit at the age of 12 was something Danny Wallace’s mother would tell anyone she met. It also wasn’t true.
Longreads Best of 2017: Under-Recognized Stories By Longreads Reading List Here are the best stories we thought deserved more attention this year.
Teju Cole Delights in Sentence Fragments By Krista Stevens Highlight “For me it’s about recognizing that great art comes in all kinds of forms.”
An Interview with ‘Call Me By Your Name’ Author André Aciman By Jessica Gross Feature The author on his writing process and what it was like to watch a film based on one of his books.
Kevin Young Is Ready to Engage the Public with Poetry By Danielle Jackson Highlight The new poetry editor of the New Yorker says that to find poetry, “you have to look in your backyard.”
The Mastery and Magic of Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah By Danielle Jackson Reading List With her profiles of Toni Morrison, Dave Chapelle, James Baldwin, and more, Ghansah is an unparalleled chronicler of black excellence.
It Takes a Village: A ‘Village Voice’ Reading List By Erin Blakemore Commentary The paper redefined the alt-weekly and introduced readers to a new kind of journalist and critic.
Why Quotas Still Don’t Work for Journalism By Danielle Tcholakian Commentary Quotas allow superiors to blame failure on subordinates and take credit for success.
The Best of City And Regional Magazines: A Reading List By Danielle Jackson Reading List These features show a rigorous approach to the truth, a convergence of the of the personal and political, and excellent writing.
The Tears of Denis Johnson By Longreads Feature The writer showed his students and friends how to remain an artist, even when one becomes a kind of cult figure.
Travel Writing for Americans Who Stay Home By Pam Mandel Commentary An editor reflects on a career in travel writing, even as Americans travel less and are exposed to less diversity.
The Story of Memory: An Interview with Paula Hawkins By Cody Delistraty Feature Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on The Train and Into the Water, reflects on two unreliable things: narrators and memory.
The Inevitable and Magical Life of Beverly Cleary, All 101 Years of It By Michelle Weber Highlight The beloved creator of Ramona Quimby and Henry Huggins enters her second century.
The Anatomy of a TV Show: How ‘The Americans’ Is Made By Cheri Lucas Rowlands Highlight 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.
‘Smoking freebase has pretty much been my job for the past year.’ By Michelle Weber Highlight In the New Yorker, Naomi Fry writes about Cat Marnell’s new memoir in a piece that’s part review, part analysis of women’s addiction stories.
