New submissions guidelines, plus information about our new essay series.
Sari Botton
Five Longreads Stories Selected for 2020 Editions of the ‘Best American’ Series
Congratulations to Matthew Salesses, Tim Requarth, Mojgan Ghazirad, Shanna B. Tiayon, Joe Fassler, and The Counter, our partner in co-publishing Fassler’s piece.
The New York You Once Knew Is Gone. The One You Loved Remains.
In this pandemic-inspired variation on the Goodbye to All That essay, Glynnis MacNicol writes about what it’s like to have stayed in the current ghost town version of New York City when so many other New Yorkers have departed for greener pastures, and considers the city’s, and city-dwellers’ history of resilience through hard times.
The Slur I Never Expected to Hear in 2020
As Coronavirus leads to a rise in racism, Cathy Park Hong, author of the essay collection, “Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning,” reviews the history of slurs and hate crimes against Asians in America, and catalogues the growing number of them here and around the world — including her own experience of being called a […]
‘Let’s Reset’: A Career Social Distancer Mends Some Fences
Coronavirus inspires Sari Botton to reach out to family and friends she’s fallen out with.
The Baller
Weary and frightened by the scary science she encounters on the climate beat, journalist Audrey Gray finds hope in the form of octogenarian Ed Mazria, a former basketball player turned architect turned climate evangelist, who has an actionable plan.
I’ve Fled New York with My Wife, Kids and Dog – Just as my Ancestors Fled the 1918 Pandemic
After covering the plights of refugees around the world as a journalist, Bryan Mealer finds himself a refugee, fleeing New York City for his childhood home of west Texas — where his great-grandmother and her oldest daughter died in the influenza epidemic of 1918.
All That Is Lost and All That Is Remembered
On the 30th anniversary of her Navy captain father’s political execution, Naz Riahi recalls her love for him, and reveals a persistent grief that is always with her.
Learning to Swim Taught Me More Than I Bargained For
In this braided essay, Jazmine Hughes contemplates her resistance to both learning to swim and coming out, and the empowerment each experience offers her when she finally surrenders to them.
Since I Became Symptomatic
A month after filing for divorce, single mom Leslie Jamison contracted COVID-19. She wrote this meditation on single parenthood, loneliness, longing, and frustration while sheltering in place — and sweating out the virus — with her 2-year-old daughter.