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Longreads
@longreads.com
4.5K followers 370 following 1.1K posts
Sharing and publishing the best longform stories at longreads.com since 2009. Sister site of @atavist.com.

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longreads.com
Love deeply reported personal essays and narrative journalism? On the CNF podcast, @provenself.bsky.social talks about the joys of both and the Longreads Member Drive. Have a listen and check out the full episode:

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October 24, 2025 at 10:17 PM
longreads.com
Help keep Longreads a safe haven for weird and wonderful stories—a place writers and readers can trust.

longreads.com/join/?utm_so...
October 22, 2025 at 4:35 PM
longreads.com
If you want more stories worth sitting with, help us keep publishing them. Because depth deserves a home.

longreads.com/join/?utm_so...
Longreads member drive logo in top left corner. Quote in middle of the image reads: "With every story, it feels like you’re given permission to take creative risks and try making something new." Bottom-right attribution line reads: "Candace Rardon"
October 20, 2025 at 3:28 PM
longreads.com
“But what if, instead of resisting the deaths of the last survivors, we allow ourselves to accept their mortality?”

The grandson of an Auschwitz-Birkenau survivor grapples with the use of AI to reanimate the dead.

A new essay on @longreads.com, by @bcgl.bsky.social: longreads.com/2025/09/25/a...
September 25, 2025 at 3:24 PM
longreads.com
In her new essay, Hannah Engler searches for answers about her great-uncle, a forgotten 1970s fashion designer: longreads.com/2025/08/07/1...
August 11, 2025 at 4:53 PM
longreads.com
New on @longreads.com: An excerpt from THE ENDURING WILD, Josh Jackson's forthcoming book on California's BLM lands—millions of forgotten "leftover" acres of public wilderness. Out on June 24 from Heyday Books 📚

longreads.com/2025/06/12/b...
Quote reads: "These lands are our common ground, a gift of seismic proportions that belongs to all of us. No matter your color, creed, or class, and even if you’ve never signed your name to a deed, you are a landowner." Attribution line reads "Josh Jackson, "The Enduring Wild."
June 16, 2025 at 5:33 PM
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In a new @longreads essay, @caylinct.bsky.social‬ writes about Sublime's late frontman Bradley Nowell, poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, addiction, and limits: longreads.com/2025/05/22/s...
Quote that reads: "I am looking for the sense of being somewhere I can never go. I’m looking for California again." Byline reads: "Caylin Capra-Thomas, 'On (the) Sublime'"
May 27, 2025 at 9:42 PM
longreads.com
Today at Longreads, N.C. Happe writes about a gut-wrenching decision she made at summer camp as a girl, one that has haunted her for 20 years.

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Quote from N.C. Happe's essay, "The Bad Thing" "It’s not that I don’t like being alone, exactly, but that I’ve never seemed to have much of a say in the matter. I don’t look for friendship, nor does it ever arrive."
May 15, 2025 at 7:32 PM
longreads.com
Writer @nicktriolo.bsky.social walked 20 miles around America's largest Superfund site. Read about this journey in an adapted excerpt from "The Way Around: A Field Guide to Going Nowhere," from @milkweededitions.bsky.social.

longreads.com/2025/04/24/b...
Longreads logo at top left "This toxic hole is 7,000 feet long, 5,600 feet wide, and 1,600 feet deep, and it will be with us now for the next 10,000 years, at least." Byline: Nicholas Triolo, "The Way Around: A Field Guide to Going Nowhere"
April 28, 2025 at 9:42 PM
longreads.com
"She tends to the structure, repairing damage, devoting energy to producing both the silk and the pattern for her web. In turn, the web feeds her." @kaseybwriter.bsky.social #writing #self-censorship

longreads.com/2025/04/08/w...
Quote: "She tends to the structure, repairing damage, devoting energy to producing both the silk and the pattern for her web. In turn, the web feeds her." Tagline: —Kasey Butcher Santana, "In Defense of Spiders" A logo in the top right reads “Longreads”
April 22, 2025 at 8:35 PM
longreads.com
A prison stay pushes Michael Fischer's obsession with water waste to the brink in our powerful new Longreads essay.

longreads.com/2025/04/15/c...
Text reads: "Prison is where someone with OCD goes to be driven insane, the illustion of agency flayed from daily life."
April 15, 2025 at 2:20 PM
longreads.com
"People who love Phish do so with a quasi-religious devotion. People who dislike Phish do so with an equal fervor." Amanda Petrusich for @newyorker.com

longreads.com/2025/04/14/t...
Headline: After Forty Years, Phish Isn't Seeking Resolution Tagline: Amanda Petrusich, The New Yorker A logo in the bottom right reads “Longreads Editor’s Pick”
April 14, 2025 at 11:08 PM
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"And I know that this, the way I love my son, and the way my father loves him, is the only way we know how to say unsayable things." —Maggie Andersen for @electricliterature.com

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Headline: My Father Tries to Teach Me His Map of Chicago Dek: He’s been the cartographer all along, steadfastly believing I’d learn to read his directions. Tagline: Maggie Andersen for Electric Literature A logo in the bottom right reads “Longreads Editor’s Pick”
April 14, 2025 at 5:27 PM
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"To eat in modern America is to participate in not-knowing. We encounter the meal on our plates, yet behind that, much is kept hidden from us: how the animals were treated, how the land was farmed. . ." @oxfordamerican.bsky.social
longreads.com/2025/04/11/k...
Headline: Know Your Burger Dek: A true farm-to-table story. Tagline: David Cook for Oxford American A logo in the bottom right reads “Longreads Editor’s Pick”
April 11, 2025 at 4:01 PM
longreads.com
"By recruiting birds as research assistants, today’s scientists are gaining a better understanding of how Earth’s climate and ecosystems function, and how to keep these interconnected systems working for all creatures—us included." —Ashley Stimpson for Audubon Magazine
longreads.com/2025/04/10/t...
Headline: The Many Ways Scientists are Turning Birds into Feathered Field Assistants Dek: From frigatebirds and gulls to curlews and cormorants, researchers are tapping the ”Internet of Animals” to map, understand, and protect our changing world. Tagline: Ashley Stimpson for Audubon Magazine A logo in the bottom right reads “Longreads Editor’s Pick”
April 11, 2025 at 2:14 PM
longreads.com
"The story of my evolving relationship with technology—a narrow slice of my experience in life—actually is worthy of telling by the definition that I set for myself." @vauhinivara.bsky.social @sarahviren.bsky.social @literaryhub.bsky.social

longreads.com/2025/04/09/p...
Headline: Portrait of ChatGPT as a Young Artist: Vauhini Vara on Voice, Tech, and Using AI in Writing Dek: Sarah Viren Talks to the Author of “Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age” Tagline: Sarah Viren, Vauhini Vara for Literary Hub A logo in the bottom right reads “Longreads Editor’s Pick”
April 9, 2025 at 4:39 PM
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New at Longreads: @kaseybwriter.bsky.social on what dreams and spiders taught her about trusting the process when it comes to her writing. #writing

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Quote: "Reading this story, I consider the spiders weaving in my dreams at times when I feel most stressed about writing. I wonder if they warn against self-censorship." Tagline: —Kasey Butcher Santana, "In Defense of Spiders" A logo in the top right reads “Longreads”
April 9, 2025 at 2:24 PM
longreads.com
"There were telephone reference divisions in libraries all over the country, but this being New York City, we were an unusually large one with an unusually heavy volume of calls." —Stephen Akey for The Hedgehog Review

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Headline: The Department of Everything Dek: Dispatches from the telephone reference desk. Tagline: Stephen Akey for The Hedgehog Review A logo in the bottom right reads “Longreads Editor’s Pick”
April 8, 2025 at 6:57 PM
longreads.com
What are our dreams trying to tell us? @kaseybwriter.bsky.social looks at the spaces between creativity and self-censorship in her new @longreads.com essay.

longreads.com/2025/04/08/w...
Quote: "'Live and let live,' some say when they catch a spider to release it outside unsquished. It does not feel like enough." Tagline: —Kasey Butcher Santana, "In Defense of Spiders" A logo in the top right reads “Longreads”
April 8, 2025 at 1:36 PM
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"Maybe the lesson then was the same as it is now: We are all just trying to survive. We are not done yet." —Emily Polk for @emergencemagazine.bsky.social

longreads.com/2025/04/07/t...
Headline: Telling the Bees Dek: Finding solace in the company of bees, Emily Polk opens to the widening circles of loss around her and an enduring spirit of survival. Tagline: Emily Polk for Emergence Magazine A logo in the bottom right reads “Longreads Editor’s Pick”
April 7, 2025 at 6:04 PM
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"Rehabbers dumped box after box of romaine lettuce into the water. The young manatee’s next meal was never in question. But her future is." —Zachary T. Sampson, @shreyavut.bsky.social @betsbarnes.bsky.social @tampabaytimes.bsky.social

longreads.com/2025/04/04/w...
Headline: Wasting Away Dek: Rampant pollution caused manatees to starve. Florida waters are getting worse. Tagline: Zachary T. Sampson, Shreya Vuttaluru, and Bethany Barnes for the Tampa Bay Times A logo in the bottom right reads “Longreads Editor’s Pick”
April 4, 2025 at 5:44 PM
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"Soon, though, the VFW was besieged by outraged emails. The organization initially released a Facebook message in support of Post 12226 but removed it after irate users bombarded the note." @milehighrobert.bsky.social for 5280 Magazine

longreads.com/2025/04/02/e...
Headline: Everyone Loved a Colorado Prison’s VFW Post—Until a Popular YouTuber Heard About It Dek: When the VFW opened a chapter inside northeastern Colorado’s Sterling Correctional Facility, the post was celebrated as a victory for prison reform nationwide. So why did it get canceled? Tagline: Robert Sanchez for 5280 Magazine A logo in the bottom right reads “Longreads Editor’s Pick”
April 2, 2025 at 5:13 PM
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"I want to talk about it, though. I want to talk about what the hell happened to my friend. I want to talk about the way addiction can give you the illusion of choice, even as it kills you." —M.D. McIntyre for @thesunmagazine.bsky.social longreads.com/2025/03/31/d...
Headline: Ditch Dek: He was always helping someone through something, even when he was barely holding on himself. Tagline: M.D. McIntyre for The Sun Magazine A logo in the bottom right reads “Longreads Editor’s Pick”
March 31, 2025 at 5:12 PM
longreads.com
In this new Longreads essay, Aaron Rabinowitz writes about survival, identity, and the inked and invisible scars that history leaves behind.

longreads.com/2025/03/27/t...
Headline: I had read enough autobiographies, seen enough archival footage, visited enough memorials and museums to understand what It meant. Tagline: Aaron Rabinowitz, "Tattoos"
March 29, 2025 at 2:20 PM
longreads.com
"I’d been listening to the song in my car earlier that morning, when a flock of Canada geese flew low and heavy over the highway, and I found myself weeping, suddenly, inelegantly, because the whole thing just felt so unlikely."

Amanda Petrusich for @newyorker.com
March 20, 2025 at 4:12 PM