Krista Stevens

@kristastevens
115 Followers
112 Following
57 Posts
Senior editor at @longreads; old timer at Automattic. Also: books, bass, guitar, and birds. Fortunate to live on Treaty One territory.

We're accepting drafts and pitches for reported and personal essays at [email protected].

We're looking for essay drafts with a unique voice on unusual or unexpected topics. Check out our features to get a sense of what we publish.

https://longreads.com/features/

Base rate is $500 US. For reported and critical essays, rates start at $500. Fees vary depending on the level of reporting and research, as well as overall word count. Learn more:

https://longreads.com/submissions/

Features

Reported pieces, essays, and book excerpts. Great writing lives here.

Longreads

4. For @kristastevens, "Romina Cenisio's Atmos piece on the monarch butterfly migration recalls the singular joy that butterflies bring, along with critically important reminders of our role as humans to ensure the well-being of butterflies for generations to come."

https://atmos.earth/the-monarch-butterfly-migration-is-in-danger/?src=longreads

Saving the Monarch Butterfly Migration

Recently, monarch butterflies were listed as endangered, threatening the future of the annual monarch butterfly migration.

Atmos

It's Top 5 time! A year in the life of a grieving mother. An afternoon of outcry. A peek into the life of a celebrity ghostwriter. A witness to a monarch migration. And the friendship behind sushi’s arrival in the U.S. These are our favorite reads of the week. 🧵

https://longreads.com/2023/05/12/the-top-5-longreads-of-the-week-465/

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

This week’s edition highlights stories by Skip Hollandsworth, Arielle Isack, J.R. Moehringer, Romina Cenisio, and Daniel Miller.

Longreads

"I made a self, and since then, I have struggled to make sense of myself."

At @longreads, Samuel Ernest considers music — both his own and the music of Perfume Genius — in coming out, and in coming to terms with both his faith and his sexuality.

Such a beautiful piece. Sam is a writer to follow!

#Longreads #PersonalEssay #PerfumeGenius #Violin #ComingOut #Pride

https://longreads.com/2023/05/02/cocooning-samuel-ernest/

Cocooning

"In coming out, my life ended. It was a personal apocalypse of many smaller revelations. The struggle that had defined me had reached its denouement of freedom—and what comes after freedom?"

Longreads

"It was both a failure and a discovery: Without my sheet music or memory, I could lurch forward anyway, relying on the technique I had spent most of my life internalizing."

At @longreads, Samuel Ernest's beautiful new essay considers faith, music, and musicianship in his coming out story.

https://longreads.com/2023/05/02/cocooning-samuel-ernest/?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=social

#Longreads #PersonalEssay #ComingOut #Pride #PerfumeGenius #Music #Faith

Cocooning

"In coming out, my life ended. It was a personal apocalypse of many smaller revelations. The struggle that had defined me had reached its denouement of freedom—and what comes after freedom?"

Longreads

"Much of the time, I feel like a girl. A curious girl of 48 who, today, is walking the neighborhood streets with a girl of 13, and listening to what this girl has to say. She happens to be my kid, this person I made, a living being that gave my life a whole new significance. She will grow up and leave me and yet never leave me; she will be mine forever, a being I shaped."

Today's new @longreads essay, by Susannah Felts, makes me cry. It's about music, yes. Music by strong young women speaking their truths.

But it's also very much about being a mother, and being an artist, and coming into one's own, and watching and learning about oneself and the world through the eyes of a daughter.

https://longreads.com/2023/04/27/girl-genius/

#Longreads #Essay #Music #Motherhood #Parenting

Girl Genius

Susannah Felts | Longreads | April 27, 2023 | 16 minutes (4,248 words) 1. On a November night in 2018,  I went to a show at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, the kind of show that fans like me enjoy telling other fans they were there for, years after the fact. Three songwriters in their 20s […]

Longreads

In advance of Mother's Day, Claire Hodgdon brings us eight thoughtful reads for those who have lost their moms. "But there is another face, sometimes. I recognize other 'dead mom kids' almost instantly. They don’t pity — they laugh. They raise their hand for a high five. They respond with, 'Mine too!' and my whole body relaxes."

#Longreads #MothersDay #ReadingList #Grief

https://longreads.com/2023/04/25/dead-moms-club-mothers-day-reading-list/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

Dead Moms Club: A Mother’s Day Reading List

Eight thoughtful reading recommendations for those who've lost their moms.

Longreads

In this excerpt from her book "We Are Not Okay" Christian Livermore writes about the shame she will forever carry for growing up poor:

"Nobel laureate Amartya Sen tells us that shame lies at the core of poverty. Anyone who grew up poor instinctively knows this to be true. She feels that shame every minute of every day, in the background if she is feeling good, in her face if she is not."

https://longreads.com/2022/10/11/some-things-never-leave-you-christian-livermore-on-povertys-indelible-marks/?utm_source=social&utm_medium=mastodon

#Longreads #BookExcerpts #Poverty #Memoir

‘Some Things Never Leave You’: Christian Livermore on Poverty’s Indelible Marks

“For me, passing means trying to be anything other than what I was, and what I fear so desperately I always will be: poor white trash.”

Longreads

"It was an informal system with implicit rules: Round up your horses in the winter, absolutely no stallions. But when the economy tanked in 2008, many in the region could no longer afford to feed their horses. And so they simply left them—even their stallions—on these sites, hopeful they would survive on the grass that mining companies were legally obligated to plant after operations had shut down."

https://sundaylongread.com/2023/04/08/saving-the-horses-of-our-imagination/

#horses #feral #longreads #editorspicks

Saving the Horses of Our Imagination

What’s to be done about Appalachia’s beloved, abandoned herds?

The Sunday Long Read

"Most surfers’ best protection is self-knowledge; they only go out when the size of the wave matches their skill level, and no higher. And all surfers know the admonition about going out with a buddy, or at least when there are others in the water. Just in case. It is common sense. It is wisdom. And yet, some days, I go out alone."

—Mylène Dressler on the allure of surfing and the joy she finds in the water.

https://longreads.com/2023/04/11/the-buddy-system/

#longreads #essay #surf #surfing #joy #renewal

The Buddy System

There is nothing quite like it. Surfing is a way of being connected to a deeper deep, an older old.

Longreads