“A conversation between Alice Wong and Ed Yong.”
writers
Posted inEditor's Pick
Joan Didion’s Magic Trick
Caitlin Flanagan goes on a road trip through California — including Sacramento, Berkeley, and Malibu — visiting the homes of the late Joan Didion and exploring why her writing has had such a powerful effect on people. Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album created a new vocabulary of essay writing, one whose influence is […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
‘The Ways of Fiction Are Devious Indeed’
Sands Hall, a playwright and daughter of author Oakley Hall, digs into the work of Wallace Stegner — specifically his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Angle of Repose, which is based on the life of Mary Hallock Foote. “[W]e often fold in the real with the invented,” writes Hall, but when does inspiration become plagiarism? Yet in […]
Posted inAnnouncements, Nonfiction, Writing
Calling All Writers: Pitch Us Your Essays
Do you have an idea for a Longreads essay? Now is the time to share it.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Into the Belly of the Whale With Sjón
“His books dance — with light, quick steps, never breaking eye contact — all over the line between the mythic and the mundane.”
Posted inAnnouncements, Curation, Reading List, Writing
Calling All Writers: Pitch Us Your Reading Lists
Got a great idea for a reading list? Pitch us.
Posted inEditor's Pick
John Updike, His Stories, and Me
“But now I’ve been a writer for 30 years, I can understand the impulses that I and he and probably every other writer have: to go after a subject we’re compelled by.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Ambiguous Loss of (Probably) Not Selling My Novel
In a period of trying to sell her novel, Danielle Lazarin reflects on art, waiting, and the space between grief and hope.
Posted inEditor's Pick
On the Trail of a Mysterious, Pseudonymous Author
“Late last spring, a strange, beguiling novel began arriving, in installments, in the mail. Who had written it?”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Sound of My Inbox
“In a newsletter, the reader is welcomed as a supporter, an ally — or perhaps even a friend.”