Sign up

Longreads

Not verified No WebSub updates No webmention support Valid

Longreads : The best longform stories on the web

Public lists
Featured
Fetched

Longreads Valid
Text • Carolyn Wells

I Lost Myself When I Lost Hong Kong

"If returning to America was like getting on a lifeboat, why did I feel like I was drowning?"

Longreads Valid
Text • David Alm

A Place Among the Fiddlers

Three musicians gather with banjo, fiddler, and guitar to jam at the Old Fiddler's Convention in Galax, Virginia, in 1978.
In a southwest Virginia fairground, thousands of musicians gather every August to keep a centuries-old tradition from flickering out.

Longreads Valid
Text • Brendan Fitzgerald

Hockey Dads and Hockey Sons

"Parenting is a practice. You learn from your mistakes and then repeat them anyway."

Longreads Valid
Text • Krista Stevens

A Record of Breath

"Archiving a life at the edge of disposal."

Longreads Valid
Text • Seyward Darby

The Babies Left Behind in America

"The United States is deporting parents without their children, creating a whole new family-separation crisis."

Longreads Valid
Text • Brendan Fitzgerald

You Should’ve Said Something

"I had to do everything the jurors did—sit in every court session, examine each piece of evidence, look out from the jury box every day at a man accused of murder—but I wouldn’t participate in the deliberation unless two jurors dropped out."

Longreads Valid
Text • Seyward Darby

Dusklands

"Growing up in the shadow of genocide."

Longreads Valid
Text • Kanya Kanchana

Lost and Found: A Reading List on Labyrinths, Mazes, and Wayfinding

Lost in a maze or found in a labyrinth? Come, let’s keep walking. 

Longreads Valid
Text • Krista Stevens

Oh, How Lucky We Are

"Sandy West believed that embracing what we cannot understand is the pathway to enlightenment, and that time on her beloved Ossabaw was the best way to learn that lesson."

Longreads Valid
Text • Cheri Lucas Rowlands

A Graveyard Shift with Britain’s Gen Z Undertakers

"Could apprentice undertakers solve youth unemployment?"

Longreads Valid
Text • Longreads

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

In this edition: the cuckoo’s nest, fruitful work, keys and locks, commander in fief; perfect sound forever, and more.

Longreads Valid
Text • Carolyn Wells

A Tale of Two Trap Houses: Being Cuckooed Ruined My Friend’s Life—But Did It Then Help Save Him?

"Drug gangs have moved off Britain’s streets and into vulnerable people’s homes. Addicts like my friend are easy targets, but the reality can be more complicated than it seems."

Longreads Valid
Text • Brendan Fitzgerald

Heaven’s Melodic Strains

"From a certain height, the problem becomes one of knowledge itself: Do you believe what you hear, or do you hear what you believe?"

Longreads Valid
Text • Longreads

Making Meaning, One Step at a Time: A Conversation with Earl Swift

Strong pacing and flow gets your reader to the finish line. The author of Up On Cove Mountain explains why they’re so important. 

Longreads Valid
Text • Brendan Fitzgerald

My Two Front Teeth

"Reflections on a lifetime of dental drama."

Longreads Valid
Text • Seyward Darby

He Was One of the World’s Most Wanted Men. So He Bought a West African Country.

"How Jos Leijdekkers turned Sierra Leone into a drug-dealer’s paradise."

Longreads Valid
Text • Carolyn Wells

Impossibility is a Myth

"Sacha Jafri sold an artwork for $62 million dollars in 2021 at an auction. But the money never changed hands. What happened?"

Longreads Valid
Text • Brendan Fitzgerald

Annie Dillard and the Writing Life

"Writers aren’t born, they’re made—from practice, reading, and a lot of caffeine. And sometimes tutelage."

Longreads Valid
Text • Carolyn Wells

The Incredible Journey of a Migratory Shorebird

"Godwits make the longest non-stop migration in the bird world. That might be the least of their marvels. Can they survive a changing planet?"

Longreads Valid
Text • Cheri Lucas Rowlands

Where Cities and Oceans Meet

"In New Orleans, water is coming. What should we do with the time we have left?"

Longreads Valid
Text • Mark Blondin and Betsy Blondin

Still On Its Way to Cleveland

Background of a vintage-style map of the United States with an early internet dial-up window layered atop it
Nine months, 25,000 miles, one phone cord, and the kindness of strangers.

Longreads Valid
Text • Cheri Lucas Rowlands

On Not Being a Homeowner

"Generational wealth shapes our futures and friendships, whether we talk about it or not."

Longreads Valid
Text • Krista Stevens

Tomato Cure

"The quiet medicine of small jobs, finished before dark."

Longreads Valid
Text • Carolyn Wells

No, But

"What was improv?"

Longreads Valid
Text • Carolyn Wells

Murder-in-Law

"The twisted story of a domestic contract killing."

Longreads Valid
Text • Longreads

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Showcasing stories from J.B. MacKinnon, Daniel Kolitz, Daniel Shailer, Justin Neuman, and Hanif Abdurraqib.

Longreads Valid
Text • Carolyn Wells

Shetland’s Most Wanted

"A series of encounters with an unlikely band of separatists."

Longreads Valid
Text • Brendan Fitzgerald

Then They Came for the Ostriches

"Poultry and paranoia in the Great White North."

Longreads Valid
Text • Longreads

The Longreads Questionnaire, Featuring Roberto José Andrade Franco

portrait of author roberto jose andrade franco
The ESPN writer tells us what feels like home, the best gift he’s ever received, and the Esquire read he can’t stop thinking about.

Longreads Valid
Text • Brendan Fitzgerald

A True-Crime Producer Posed as an Heiress — Then Allegedly Stole $30 Million

"Mary Carole McDonnell made low-budget crime shows, but her own story was built on deceptions fit for one of her series. Now, she’s on the FBI’s Most Wanted list and the target of a global manhunt."