Five Longreads Stories Selected for 2020 Editions of the ‘Best American’ Series By Sari Botton Highlight Congratulations to Matthew Salesses, Tim Requarth, Mojgan Ghazirad, Shanna B. Tiayon, Joe Fassler, and The Counter, our partner in co-publishing Fassler’s piece.
And Then We Grew Up By Sarah Menkedick Feature On letting go of potential and other myths of greatness.
Grieving, but Calmed by a Different Kind of Storm By Stephanie Land Feature In isolation, Stephanie Land finds surprising relief from PTSD — and discovers she is able to write again.
Why I’m Giving Myself Permission to Keep Writing at This Time By Sari Botton Highlight Our stories matter. And they are our legacies for future generations. (Plus: some free writing resources.)
Moving Literary Life Off the Page By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight For one poet, conducting a satisfying literary life off-page required living life outside the classroom.
When Time Costs Too Much By Carolyn Wells Highlight If you are the family breadwinner, how do you calculate the value of time with your children?
We Use Language as a Spade By Krista Stevens Highlight “Though the embryo was only seven weeks old, I loved it. I loved it and wanted it, and its life ended.”
Telling Stories In Order to Live: On Writing and Money By Sarah Menkedick Feature Sarah Menkedick examines the perils inherent in trying to earn a living as a full-time writer.
William Gibson on How Science Fiction Portrays Reality By Krista Stevens Highlight “Every fiction about the future is like an ice-cream cone,” Gibson says, “melting as it moves into the future.”
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.
How to Stay Out of Your Editor’s ‘Jerks’ File By Sari Botton Highlight Rule one of freelance writing: accept rejection with grace.
Learning from Perimenopause and a Kpop Idol By Wendy Gan Feature Struggling with fluctuating hormones, Wendy Gan is inspired by the musician Mino to stop muting herself and return to writing.
My Year on a Shrinking Island By Michael Blair Mount Feature Former baker Michael Mount explores the interplay of community, cookie dough, and changing terrain on Martha’s Vineyard
Life After Pain By Michelle Weber Highlight One day, Ge Gao’s right hand stopped working. Then the pain started, and it’s never stopped.
Exilium Vita Est: The Island Home of Victor Hugo By Emma Jacobs Feature Emma Jacobs takes us on an illustrated journey of Hugo’s writing life in exile on Guernsey, where he completed Les Misérables.
‘I’m Incredulous That People Do This Repeatedly. The Second Book Thing Is So Real.’ By Zan Romanoff Feature Mary H.K. Choi discusses her latest novel, which examines how “holograms and digital envoys” represent us online, and why it feels like her “second book signals the death of my first.”
‘Nobody in This Book Is Going to Catch a Break’: Téa Obreht on “Inland” By Ryan Chapman Feature ‘The history of the West is a deeply turbulent one… that kept the living population in a constant state of unrest. I thought this constant state of unrest must be true for the dead as well.’
Shapes of Native Nonfiction: ‘The Basket Isn’t a Metaphor, It’s an Example’ By Colin Dickey Feature The editors of “Shapes of Native Nonfiction” talk about the craft of writing, the politics of metaphor, and resisting the exploitation of trauma.
Workshopping Workshop: A Reading List By Jacqueline Alnes Reading List “In workshop, what, if anything, can be written on a syllabus or spoken aloud in class to ensure that each and every participant’s work is read with care?”
‘My Teachers Said We Weren’t Allowed To Use Them.’ By Tobias Carroll Feature How Cecelia Watson learned to stop worrying and love the semicolon.
‘I Surprise Myself With This Refusal To Let Go’: Kate Zambreno on the ‘Ghostly Correspondence’ By Tobias Carroll Feature “I thought for sure, I’ll never write about Rilke again. I’m done with Rilke! I’m sick of Rilke! Rilke — no more. But then the other day … I just started researching something about Rilke.”
The First Book By Sarah Menkedick Feature Eleven women writers on this apocryphal publishing milestone.
Who Do You Belong To? By Emily Lackey Feature When she dipped her heart into someone else’s relationship, Emily Lackey discovered how to define love on her own terms.
Game of Crones By Laura Lippman Feature It wasn’t entirely Laura Lippman’s idea to become a mother in her 50s. But when it happened, she leaned in hard.
The Women Characters Rarely End Up Free: Remembering Rachel Ingalls By Ruby Brunton Feature The recently re-appreciated novelist Rachel Ingalls passed away last month. She was among a cohort of twentieth-century women writers who were ‘famous for not being famous.’
MACHO: On Black Holes, and the Fantasies of Men By Frances Dodds Feature Frances Dodds recalls two men who laid bare the fragile lines between desire, pain and manipulation — and questions the framework of her own fantasies.
If Following McMillan Cottom and Gay on Twitter Isn’t Enough, Here You Go By Michelle Weber Highlight More of this sort of thing, thanks.
Our Words Will Save Us and Set Us Free By Jackson Bliss Feature In the wake of having his writing career belittled, Jackson Bliss becomes an interpreter for a refugee and comes to see words, translations, and storytelling as important acts of resistance.
‘In a Marriage, You Grow Around Each Other’: An Interview with Tessa Hadley By Sarah Boon Feature Tessa Hadley on gaining the sense of authority she needed to write fiction, the authors whose work opens the door for her to write, and the way we are formed by our connections with other people.
On the Books We Choose and Those We Don’t By Krista Stevens Highlight “All the people you could have been had you chosen differently—they haunt the bookstore alongside the person you became and could still become.”
